Alice Walker & Obama, Spoken Word vid

Alice Walker. This is a wonderful piece, in part addressing "womanism", talking about the complexities of race and gender in America, and endorsing Obama. Choice quote:

"I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans –black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me."

Movement in polls
National Gallup poll has Obama above 50% for three days running, and today ten points above Hillary, with 52%-42%. Rasmussen also has Obama above Hillary for three consecutive days, now 47%-42%. Both polls are outside the margin of error. Pundits are suggesting that this means that 1) Obama has gotten past, at least for now, the Rev. Wright controversy; and 2) Hillary's claims about being under sniper fire in Bosnia have hurt her. Recent Pew poll finds that 30% of white Democratic voters see Hillary as "phony."

Movement in Delegates
Looks like Obama's getting a slew of superdelegate endorsements tomorrow--a senator from Minnesota and seven congresspeople from North Carolina. Also, little reported: the second step of the Texas caucuses took place at state senate district conventions. The tallies are still coming in, but it looks like Obama will have a 12 percent lead over Clinton, which means that he will gain 9 more delegates than Clinton, thus surpassing her 4 delegate lead from the primary votes; the upshot is that Obama will win Texas by 5 delegates.

The Pennsylvania Campaign
Bob Casey gave a surprise endorsement to Obama on Friday. Obama began his bus tour, doing small town hall meetings and local establishment visits. He also had a record-breaking crowd at Penn State, with 22,000 people in attendance (photos).

Spoken Word
This is a pretty funny, and moving, piece called "Damn You Barack Obama, You Pretty Mothaf**ker"

Rev. Wright had a letter in the NYTimes a year ago, which sheds some light...

And oh, we still have a long way to go. On the power of smears and ongoing racism among democrats...A new Pew Foundation poll shows that:

"White Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."