Stereohyped's brother site, Queerty, interviewed three of Barack Obama's gay campaigners to ask them why, when Hillary Clinton is largely gay ally, they are supporting the other guy. He got some interesting answers. Stampp Corbin, the co-chair of Obama's National LBGT Policy Commitee, grew up with Michelle Obama, but he says that its neither his personal association with the possible-future First Lady or the color of Barack Obama's skin that influences him. According to Corbin, his stance on LGBT issues was the major draw:

One, Barack Obama is great on LGBT issues and that’s of primary importance to me. Secondarily, I look at all of the other issues across the spectrum. There are a variety of them, from the war in Iraq to economic policies, but from an LGBT perspective, I think he’s better on those issues, particularly with the DOMA situation. He wants the full deal and Clinton believes - it’s just a difference of opinion. It’s strategic to leave parts of this Defense of Marriage Act so our opponents can’t get a federal marriage amendment passed. [But] I don’t think a federal marriage amendment can get passed if we have a Democratic president.

The Clinton campaign has lobbed a pretty damning accusation against Barack Obama. They claim he stole a portion of a speech from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who calls the charges "extravagant" and "elaborate."

In 2006 Patrick gave a speech quoting famous phrases: "'We have nothing to fear, but fear itself,' … just words. 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' Just words. … 'I have a dream' … just words,'" he said, switching effortlessly from FDR to JFK to MLK.

On Saturday in Wisconsin, Obama said, "Don't tell me words don't matter. … 'I have a dream.' Just words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' Just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Just words. Just speeches."

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Hillary Clinton's keeping her eyes on Texas. It's the most productive and smartest thing to do, since Maine, Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, and now, Virginia, Maryland, and DC have all gone to Barack Obama. His wins weren't by particularly small margins, either. Last night, Obama swept the Potomac primaries, winning 75 percent of the vote in DC (big surprise), 60 percent in Maryland, and 64 percent in Virginia.

The most interesting thing about his wins, which were expected by both candidates, is that Obama was able to expand his base. Unlike in many previous contests, Obama won the majority of whites, blacks, women, Latinos and older voters. The theory that only blacks and young people are voting for Obama didn't apply this time around. Lower income and working class voters favor Hillary Clinton. It's for this reason, and the fact that she is still believed to have the Latino vote on lock, that Clinton's next very good bet (aka sure thing) is Texas, where she's hoping to make up the delegates she lost over the past few days. She's also banking on Pennsylvania and Ohio.

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Barack Obama is favored in Maryland, Virginia, and DC for the Potomac Primaries tomorrow, and he's certainly riding a wave of momentum. He swept all four states that held primaries this weekend — Maine (59 percent), Louisiana (57 percent), Nebraska (68 percent), and Washington (68 percent). His victory in Maine was the most unexpected, since Hillary Clinton has the endorsement of the state's governor and because of the state's proximity to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, both of which Clinton won. According to CBS, Obama has a very small delegate lead (1,134 to 1,131) over Clinton, who has far more superdelegates on her side than Obama does.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton just got a new campaign manager. She says it's unrelated to the weekend's losses.

As more finite results from Super Tuesday's voting come in, some are predicting that Barack Obama will come out on top of the delegate race. Hillary Clinton won the big prize in California, but, according to NBC News, he'll likely end up with 840-849 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 829-838. The Clinton campaign is still crunching numbers, but the Obama campaign has sent out his statement:

“Obama wins Super Tuesday by winning more states and more delegates.”

Campaign Manager David Plouffe said: “By winning a majority of delegates and a majority of the states, Barack Obama won an important Super Tuesday victory over Sen. Clinton in the closest thing we have to a national primary.”

“From Colorado and Utah in the West to Georgia and Alabama in the South to Sen. Clinton’s backyard in Connecticut, Obama showed that he can win the support of Americans of every race, gender and political party in every region of the country,” Plouffe said. “That’s why he’s on track to win Democratic nomination, and that’s why he’s the best candidate to defeat John McCain in November.”

The Obama campaign attached an Excel spreadsheet containing “state-by-state estimates of the pledged delegates we won last night, which total 845 for Obama and 836 for Clinton — bringing the to-date total of delegates to 908 for Obama, 884 for Clinton.”

[Politico]

The Reno-Gazette Journal, before whose editorial board Barack Obama made his soon-to-be infamous Reagan remarks, came out with a ringing endorsement for Obama today. But at what cost? The game of pandering to Republicans (aka "See! I'm not so prohibitively liberal!") — which all the candidates play at some point — would make a lot more sense during the general election than during the primary election, when his same-party opponents are so poised to pounce. He surely lost some votes from supporters who would consider a Democratic candidate mentioning himself in the same breath as Ronald Reagan — no matter his intent — a dealbreaker. So far, Obama's camp hasn't defended his remarks in full force, but his spokesman had this to say:

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During a meeting before the editorial board of the Reno Journal-Gazette recently, Barack Obama made some interesting comparisons. When asked to place this election in historical context, Obama compared his candidacy to both JFK's and Reagan's. Wait, Reagan's? WTF?

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Yesterday, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attempted to diffuse a racial conflict that has garnered international attention and is spiraling out of control. I think Obama used the right word when he called it "silliness."

B.O. –

“I don’t want the campaign at this stage to degenerate into so much tit for tat, back and forth, that we lose sight of why all of us are doing this,” he said at a news conference. “We’ve got too much at stake at this time in our history to be engaging in this kind of silliness.”

Asked whether he believed that either Mrs. Clinton or former President Bill Clinton had shown racial insensitivity in recent days, Mr. Obama said: “I don’t want to rehash that. I think that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically and consistently been on the right side of civil rights issues.”

H.C. –

“We may differ on minor matters,” Mrs. Clinton said of Mr. Obama, “but when it comes to what is really important, we are family. Both Senator Obama and I know that we are where we are today because of leaders like Dr. King and generations of men and women like all of you.”

John Kerry officially endorsed Barack Obama in South Carolina today. He had a few words to say about his guy during a Charleston rally.

“Who better than Barack Obama to bring new credibility to America’s role in the world and help restore our moral authority?” Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a rally at the College of Charleston. “Who better than Barack Obama to turn a new page in American politics, so that Democrats, independents and Republicans alike can look to the leadership that unites to find common ground.”
Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who was the party’s presidential nominee in 2004, said he was endorsing Mr. Obmaa’s candidacy because he believed he was uniquely situated to inspire “millions of Americans to join together and come together in a movement” to demand real change in Washington.

All I take from what he said is "pray to god that Barack Obama can do what I couldn't." I'm praying that whoever wins the nomination can do what John Kerry couldn't, frankly.

Ever hear of the Bradley Effect? It's a phenomenon named after Tom Bradley, a black L.A. mayor who ran for governor in 1982. Although polls showed him far ahead of his white competition, he ended up losing. The same thing happened in 1989, when the victory of black governor Douglas Wilder was much, much closer than polls projected it would be, and in 1990, when Harvey Gantt, who was ahead in the polls, lost by four points to Sen. Jesse Helms. The theory is that white people don't want to admit that they aren't supporting the black candidate in polls, although they have no such reservations when it actually comes to voting.

Is this what happened with Barack Obama last night? Across the board, the polls showed Obama had a comfortable lead over Hillary Clinton. After the votes were tallied, this turned out not to be the case. Experts have been warning people about this phenomenon as far back as May, but, nevetheless, people who make a living out of political polls are stumped.

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Republicans heart Obama? I know he's big on the bipartisanship, but I would actually feel better if guys like Rush Limbaugh would keep their Obama compliments to a minimum (especially after this.) It makes me squeamish. Although if/when Hillary is out of the picture, I'm sure they will more than make up for these niceties with their typical hatefulness.

"Who's not proud of this kid?" says Amanda Carpenter, national political reporter for the conservative site Townhall.com. "He has a story people feel good about."

In the wake of Obama's remarks about unity on the night of his Iowa caucus victory Thursday, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and self-described conservative, called it "one of the most remarkable speeches I've ever seen."

Bill Bennett, the conservative author, said on CNN that it was a "remarkable breakthrough" for "Barack Hussein Obama, a black man," to win in a "rural, white farming state." Rush Limbaugh added his voice on the radio, saying that Obama and Mike Huckabee, the Republican winner in Iowa, "had really uplifting, inspirational speeches."

In other news…New Hampshire!

Prior to the Iowa Caucus, the newspapers loved to write stories about how black people didn't support Barack Obama because they didn't want him to get assassinated or didn't think American would vote for him. Now that Obama has won Iowa and has carried that momentum into New Hampshire, black people, even those who still don't plan to vote for him, are getting swept up in the Obama moment. The New York Times complied a bunch of quotes about Barack Obama's Iowa win from blacks across the country. Discussing Obama-As-President is definitely premature, but there is something great about the reactions of older blacks who never thought that they would see something like this happen in their lifetimes.

I wonder if one has to be an Barack Obama supporter to go all goose-bumpy watching this speech (watch Part 2 here), which the senator made after the Iowa results came in. Obviously, I'm a supporter, and I'm plagued with goose bumps every time I think about what happened last night — "after the longest, costliest and most intensely fought campaign in the history of the Iowa caucuses," Barack Obama won! And the top three Democratic contenders matched up in a way that is certainly lighting a fire under the ass of one Hillary Rodham Clinton.

We'll surely be hearing, reading and (in my case) writing about this all day. But for now, get the hard facts after the jump.

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Awww! Even Hillary Clinton would admit this is pretty cute.

Damn those Hillary Clinton staffers and their unauthorized emails and statements. They might be impressively diverse, but they definitely need some media training. Hillary Clinton personally apologized to Barack Obama today for some statements Bill Shaheen, who co-chairs her campaign in N.H., made about Obama's past drug use.

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight … and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," Shaheen said. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Shaheen, husband of former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, apologized for his comments and said in a statement late Wednesday "they were not authorized by the campaign in any way."

Obama said he did not think it was Shaheen's intent to plant such a rumor. The candidate said he is not worried the remarks may damage his campaign "since it's not true."

"I don't think the American people are concerned about what I did when I was a teenager. They're concerned about what I'm going to do as a presidential candidate," he said.

I, for one, will be happy when Hillary vs. Barack takes a Christmas break. Meanwhile, I'm loving what Mike Huckabee is doing over in the other race. Democrats heart Huckabee!