[Dialogue] MoveOn Endorses Obama

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Friday, February 1, 2008 by The Nation
<http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=278779>  

MoveOn Endorses Obama

by Ari Melber

Today Barack Obama earned the endorsement of MoveOn, one of the largest
grassroots membership organizations in the United States, after clobbering
Hillary Clinton by 40 percent in Internet balloting. Obama led the final
tally 70.4% to 29.6%, clearing the supermajority required for the
endorsement. MoveOn, which has never endorsed a presidential candidate
before, boasts that it has 1.7 million members in Super Tuesday states. The
group has over half a million members in California alone - roughly one out
of ten primary voters in Tuesday's largest state.
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0201_10.jpg>
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0201_10.jpg> 0201 10
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0201_10.jpg> 

"We've learned that the key to achieving change in Washington without
compromising core values is having a galvanized electorate to back you up,"
said Executive Director Eli Pariser, "and Barack Obama has our members
'fired up and ready to go' on that front."

Obama welcomed the endorsement on Friday. "In just a few years, the members
of MoveOn have once again demonstrated that real change comes not from the
top-down, but from the bottom-up. From their principled opposition to the
Iraq war - a war I also opposed from the start - to their strong support for
a number of progressive causes, MoveOn shows what Americans can achieve when
we come together in a grassroots movement for change," he said in a
statement. "I thank them for their support and look forward to working with
their members in the weeks and months ahead," he added.

Organizers said they would "immediately" begin mobilizing on behalf of
Obama, leading turnout programs and phone-banking members of MoveOn in
targeted states. The group made seven million "GOTV" calls for Democrats in
the mid-term elections, and it has an extensive voter file database.

The decisive victory shows that Obama is consolidating support from the
netroots in the wake of John Edwards' withdrawal. Obama also won the Edwards
vote in Thursday's Daily Kos reader poll. He bounced 35 points to reach an
all-time high of 71 percent, while Clinton held steady at 11 percent. If
Super Tuesday is a tie and both campaigns brace for a protracted delegate
hunt, Obama could draw fundraising, volunteers and advocacy from a united
front of MoveOn, netroots activists and bloggers.

Matthew Smith, an Ohio MoveOn member who voted for Obama yesterday, said he
was excited by the Obama's "ability to draw people to him, to energize
people who generally don't vote [and] to create an atmosphere of
long-overdue possibility."

C 2008 The Nation

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org 

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/01/6794/

 

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