While Steve Hildebrand, the out deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama, is being bandied about as a potential replacement for DNC Chair Howard Dean, all he's dreaming of is going back from whence he came.
"I’m going home to South Dakota to be with my partner and my dog," Hildebrand told me. When I mentioned rumors about him potentially heading up the DNC, he just laughed. "I would rather put a bullet through my head. I mean that’s nothing that will happen."
Usually, when politicians deny that they want a job, it's all part of the DC courting process. But Hildebrand's no politician and something tells me he wasn't just being coy. (Kerry Eleveld)
Out state representative Greg Harris is carrying the Illinois civil unions bill, which he introduced in 2007 only about a month after he introduced his marriage bill. "It was very clear that marriage was something people in Illinois weren't ready to vote for yet," Harris said. But as he started lobbying folks, even from downstate, he was surprised at how open they were to an alternative. "People understood and they said, 'Is there something short of marriage that will give people their rights?'" he added.
The civil unions bill is on the move, and, as Harris pointed out, the legislation only took one year to get out of committee, whereas it took fully 28 years to move the gay civil rights bill in Illinois. And as I reported earlier, Illinois may actually call for a house vote on the civil unions bill in the next couple weeks and at the very least by January. (If Barack makes a big sweep tonight, supporters want to wait for the new Democrats to take their seat).
Interesting to note: Obama's political position of favoring civil unions over marriage because he doesn't believe the country is ready for marriage very much mirrors the Illinois experience. (Kerry Eleveld)
Vernita Gray, 59, is a staple of Chicago's LGBT community, a huge Obama supporter, and "Baracked" the Democratic convention, but she also recalls a different time and place. "My Grandma and I used to sit on the porch, and we'd see an airplane fly by and she'd say, 'Vernita, you think we'll ever see a black man driving one of those?'"
Gray said her biggest hope was to see the nation come together. "To me, our nation is so wounded," she said, adding, "Healing doesn't happen overnight."
Vanessa Davis, a 44-year-old blues singer, remembers her Chicago neighborhood literally burn to the ground in the wake of Martin Luther King's 1968 assassination. Later I asked whether she worried what might happen in this country if Obama doesn't win today. "The system has to work," she said. "I trust that we can accept [a loss], because if we don't accept this -- the blacks -- then it hurts everybody. I hope we can take it -- we saw a white man do it eight years ago," she said, referring to Al Gore. (Kerry Eleveld)
Rick Garcia, director of public policy at Equality Illinois, gave me a bit of juicy news that he hasn't spoken about on the record yet. They've been trying to get a civil unions bill passed here statewide, and Equality Illinois, along with other state politicos, asked the Obama camp to lobby on behalf of the bill. The campaign offered up Valerie Jarrett, a respected Chicago figure and senior adviser to the campaign, to make six calls to state representatives who were on the fence about backing the legislation. Two of those legislators have since indicated their support, and, according to Garcia, "we may call a civil unions in the house in two weeks." If not, Garcia was confident they would take a vote on the bill in January.
I asked Garcia if he was pleased with the campaign's response and thought Jarrett was a good pick for the job. "Frankly, she was the best," he said. "I loved that they had her do it because of the weight she carries in the campaign."
Garcia, who knows Obama's organization as well as about anyone in the country, says he thinks a potential Obama administration would move first on an ENDA bill (Barack backs full inclusion).
He is also keeping his fingers crossed and anticipating that a number of Illinois politicians might be pulled into the administration, leaving several open seats for pro-gay and out politicians to move into. Obama's potential chief of staff, BTW, Congressional taskmaster Rahm Emanuel, who backs an inclusive ENDA, hate crimes legislation, and "don't ask, don't tell" repeal. "On gay and lesbian issues, his record is sterling," says Garcia. (Kerry Eleveld)
Chicago LGBT activist Art Johnston recalls meeting with Barack Obama in 1997 during Obama's first year in the Illinois state senate. At the time, local activists were sensing potential disruptions between the LGBT community and the African-American caucus in the senate. "We usually have 100% support of the black caucus, except for Meeks," Johnston explains, referring anti-gay state senator Reverend James Meeks.
Johnston visited Obama to figure out what the community needed to do in order to shore up black support. But Barack didn't give Johnston exactly what he wanted. "He wanted to talk about the underlying assumptions blacks have about gays and gays have about blacks," says Johnston. "It was this incredibly thoughtful, cerebral conversation. As a lobbyist, it wasn't what I was looking for -- I wanted a quick fix. But that's not where Barack was going. I walked out overwhelmed by the man's sincerity, commitment to the issues, and intellectual rigor." (Kerry Eleveld)
Twenty-three-year-old Aaron Bowen, a gay Chicagoan and Obama supporter, got his first taste of canvassing this year when he hit the road for Obama in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., oftentimes in areas that were predominantly white. Bowen said he encountered an older white man -- a former farmer, a factory worker, and self-identified Republican -- just outside of St. Louis, who unabashedly told him, "I'm voting for the [n word], not the old guy."
Bowen chalked up the statement to the gentleman's total lack of exposure to other races more than anything. "The level of ignorance is surprising, but I didn't find it malicious or spiteful," he said. "The man said to me, 'I've never encountered intelligent black people before.'"
Later in our conversation, I asked Bowen whether he thought the nation was changing. "When I met that man, that's when I knew it was changing. These people have been excluded by the system for so long," he said, identifying with the disenfranchisement of an older white working-class guy, who was throwing in the towel on the Republican Party to vote for the person who may well become America's first African-American president. (Kerry Eleveld)
Here's a custom-made "Obama Pride" sign on the outside of SideTrack, an LGBT bar in Chicago where owner and local activist Art Johnston expects anywhere from 500 to 700 raucous gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender folks will come to celebrate -- they hope -- tonight. I will also be reporting from this space, since it will be a streaming who's who of Chicago LGBT activists.
Opened by Johnston and his partner, Jose "Pepe" Pena, in 1982, SideTrack is sort of an LGBT institution in Chicago, continually hosting political events and fund-raisers for the community. When it first opened, Johnston said, they had about 800 square feet, which has now expanded out to around 14,000 square feet. The video bar has massive screens in a maze of rooms, and Johnston plans on tuning into CNN for the evening. But he has also hired four people to research LGBT-specific races across the country so they can deliver the gay news that CNN will inevitably miss throughout the night. The festivities will also include a balloon drop when/if Senator Obama wins the presidency.
"We're treating it like New Year's Eve," says Johnston, who notes that he and his team might be willing to call the election for Barack earlier than other news orgs. "We don't care what CNN is going to do. We're gonna have the best political team on the block." (Kerry Eleveld)
In 2000 the residents of Dixville Notch, N.H., voted for Bush over Gore. In 2004 they picked Bush over Kerry. But this year, the small New Hampshire village (with just 21 registered voters) went Democratic. With 15 ballots cast for Obama, the residents of Dixville Notch voted just after midnight, as they have every election year since 1960. The village has become known as the first place in the United States to vote.
The last Democrat the voters of Dixville Notch picked was Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon in 1968.
A mere day before the county votes on the next president of the United States, Barack Obama's grandmother Madelyn Dunham lost her battle with cancer. She was 86. John and Cindy McCain were quick to express their sorrows...
"We offer our deepest condolences to Barack Obama and his family as they grieve the loss of their beloved grandmother. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives." (Ross von Metzke)
Even as Barack Obama's campaign finalized an ad buy last week for four full-page ads in local gay weeklies in Ohio and Texas, Hillary Clinton was conducting a conference call on LGBT issues and answering the questions of local reporters from the Dallas Voice and two Ohio publications: Outlook Weekly and Gay People's Chronicle. Altogether, Clinton has done interviews with six LGBT outlets, including The Advocate, Logo, and The Washington Blade. Clinton also published a message to LGBT Americans on OurChart.com.
Obama has given one interview to an LGBT news outlet: last October to The Advocate. Today he published an open letter to the LGBT community on the blog Bilerico Project, the second such post he has made to that site.
The Obama campaign is lavishing some of its cash advantage on the LGBT community with targeted ad buys in Ohio and Texas leading up to the critical March 4th primaries in both states (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote that day). According to Obama LGBT Steering Committee member Eric Stern, the campaign has just completed an ad buy with queer newspapers in the four largest LGBT markets of those two states -- Columbus, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston.
This is a generic version of the full-page ad that will appear starting this Friday (2/29) in Outlook Weekly of Columbus, the Gay People's Chronicle of Cleveland, the Dallas Voice, and OutSmart, which is Houston based. Buying a full-page, four-color ad that appears one time typically costs anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000 in weekly publications. In the Gay People's Chronicle, for instance, the ad cost about $850 according to the paper's advertising manager; the same ad went for about $1500 in the Dallas Voice. (Ad provided by Obama '08)
The ads were the brainchild of Stampp Corbin, co-chair of Sen. Obama's National LGBT Leadership Council. Stern called the coordinated buy "the icing on the cake" in terms of the Obama camp's outreach to the gay community in Ohio and Texas. "It's a direct appeal to LGBT voters asking for their support," he said, adding that the ads will include market-specific information about how people can get involved with the campaign. The Obama campaign has actively been trying to cut into the longstanding ties between gays and lesbians and Hillary Clinton.
Wisconsin (92 delegates) voting is under way and Hawaii (29 delegates) caucuses tonight, both likely to fall for Obama, but perhaps not quite as decisively as once was thought.
The Obama campaign’s internal projections (accidentally sent to reporters last week) had him winning Wisconsin by a 7-point margin, 53% to 46%, and Hawaii 52% to 47%.
But in Wisconsin, polling appears to have tightened up a bit over the weekend with Rasmussen Reports giving Obama a 4-point edge in Wisconsin (+/-4.0 margin of error) and nearly a quarter of those polled saying they might change their mind before voting.
Hawaii still favors Obama, partly because he grew up there and partly because caucus states have been good to him. But Clinton did put some resources into the state, not the least of which was Chelsea who spent a couple days stumping for her there -- leading to some last-minute momentum on the ground.
Wisconsin does hold some demographic favorables for Clinton: it's about 9/10 white, has a large working class, and is slightly older on average than the rest of the nation. However, the state also holds open primaries, meaning independents and Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary if they so choose. Wisconsin's nearly 30% registered independents are expected to be a boost for Obama.
If Clinton were to win Wisconsin, it would be a huge morale booster, though it might not result in a big delegate change since the margin would likely be small. The pundits are still leaning Obama, though most are saying that it may well be tighter than originally expected.
Before Super Tuesday, I was in Seattle and crossed paths with Idaho's Democratic Party vice chair, Jeanne Buell, which yielded a number of interesting insights.
Perhaps most poignantly given Obama's growing momentum, our conversation really brought home his strategy of redrawing the political map by paying attention to smaller states and red states while Clinton was focused on the big enchiladas like New York (288 delegates) and California (441 delegates).
Buell was ecstatic because Obama was scheduling 3 hours of time to visit Idaho, a predominately red state with only 23 delegates, on the Saturday before Super Tues (he ended up drawing a crowd of about 14,000). Buell, who is a superdelegate in Idaho, had promised that she would pledge her vote to whichever Democratic candidate would actually visit Idaho before the caucus. "I never dreamed any of them would show up," she told me. When asked why Obama would spend several hours in a state that only offers 23 delegates, she said, "I'd like to believe it's because he cares about the people of Idaho." Pressed further, she added, "I think it's smart. Do you know how much press the man's going to get?"
Few people are questioning how smart it was now. Idaho Democrats chose him over Clinton by a margin of 80% to 17%. Clinton almost didn't make the 15% threshold she needed in order to be eligible for delegates. Obama's efforts in Idaho -- he also opened an HQ there last November, far in advance of any other candidate -- are an example of the type of ground game that has led most recently to his string of eight straight wins in February.
Hillary's campaign has taken note. On a press call today (2/13), Clinton's senior advisors promised that the campaign would have paid staffers in all remaining states that have yet to vote. "We are recommitting and redoubling our efforts to make sure that we have the most effective and largest grass roots operation in these states moving forward," said Guy Cecil, the campaign's political and field director. Whether those efforts are too little, too late remains to be seen.
On a separate note, Buell is part of Idaho's women's caucus and had attended the DNC's diversity summit in Las Vegas last summer, where over 100 LGBT activists also attended to represent the community. In the course of networking, Buell met some LGBT participants and spent time talking to one transgender activist. "I had never met a transgender person before," Buell said. "I had no idea what type of turmoil they go through." Buell came away from the summit with a better understanding of the queer community and now wants to start an LGBT caucus in Idaho.
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