This afternoon (21 May 2008), Sen. Barack Obama held a rally in Tampa at the St. Pete Times Forum.  I believe that this was his first official campaign event in Florida since fall 2007 and he said that he missed us.  As you can see in the pictures below, we missed him too and gave him a warm welcome back to the Sunshine State!

This was also only the second event (other than his Des Moines victory speech last night) after Obama clinched the lead in pledged delegates, a point that he made in his speech.  I had daydreams that reaching this milestone might result in a big endorsement from Pelosi and the "club " members (a la Edwards in MI last week), but that did not end up being the case.  Oh well -- it was still pretty amazing.

In an election cycle alternatively dominated either by Iraq and foreign policy or by the stumbling US economy, it is inevitable that some important issues have not received the attention that they deserve.  Many of these issues are not trivial.  As the presumptive nominee of our party, I expect Senator Obama to take a leading role in directing the party’s message and tone going into the 2008 election, and for me that includes addressing some things that he has so far neglected in his speeches and position papers.  Although there are others, in this diary I will discuss Obama’s positions on women’s reproductive rights.  This is a bread and butter progressive issue, yet is not afforded significant coverage in the "Issues" pages of Obama’s website or in his detailed "Blueprint for Change."  Instead, Obama’s position on women’s reproductive rights was added to his campaign site only recently and is still relegated to the "Fact check" section.  That is disappointing.  Some of you might not think this is a big deal, but I strongly disagree and I’ll tell you why.    

If you haven’t already flamed me for daring to criticize Obama's campaign strategy, lets take the jump ~~~~~

I started today reading about how the sky is falling.  Obama is going to lose, you wail!  The election will be stolen, we lament!  Hillary = evil!  Wright = damaging loudmouth!  DKos community in upheaval!  

Browsing DKos is my preferred means of procrastinating for at least a few minutes (i.e., hours) every morning, but I'll admit that the diaries this particular morning put me in a funk.

I was worried, gnashing my teeth, fidgeting and, yes, even a little scared.  My feeling of unease lasted pretty much the entire day.  Then I read this diary from LarsThorwald

And then what did I do?  Order pizza and watch a movie?  Fuck no! (but maybe for those who are really strung out this would work) Chill out?  Definitely not.  Cry and moan about Clinton/Wright/Fox/MSM/debates/polls?  No way, I'm done with that shit.  Nope, instead I had an adult beverage and then called college students in North Carolina from Obama's online phonebanking tool.

Read about it here or, better yet, make some calls now and read later so you can be honest when you reply to the poll.  

Yesterday evening on The News Hour I watched a clip of Mike Huckabee explaining why he intended to remain in the Republican primary race.  I didn't hear any biblical metaphors for a change, but instead a reference to the fast pace of modern life, which perhaps contributes to our willingness to rush judgment on political candidates.  Huckabee suggested the following:

The people lose when we have this microwaved election.  We ought to cook it slow.

Why is this interesting?  Is Huckabee on to something here?

I am not surprised that Hillary Clinton has sufficient confidence in her chances of winning the nomination to loan her campaign some cash.  It may well prove to be a very smart move -- there are a lot of states left and she has millions of strong supporters.  

Yesterday I felt compelled to write a letter to my friends and family who live in Super Tuesday states urging them to vote for Barack Obama.  So, I spent about an hour writing an email to my brothers and parents in Missouri and Illinois, my cousin and uncle in California, and friends in Colorado, Missouri, Georgia, Illinois and Arizona.  I even sent it as a pre-emptive strike to three other friends in North Carolina and DC.  Most of them are Democrats, as far as I know, but others lean a little to the right or tend to be non-political.  Some of the friends I haven't seen or been in touch with since college, or even high school in a few cases.  

I cast my (paper) ballot for Obama last week in Florida, where I live and attend graduate school at the flagship university of that state.