Barack Obama’s “Turn the Page” Speech Wows California Democratic …
California Progress Report - Oakland,CA,USA
Departing from his stump speech, Barack Obama had the California Democratic Convention spellbound for 23 minutes as he appeared with State Senate Majority …

Calif. Democrats warm for Clinton, wild for Obama
Reuters via Yahoo! News Sat, 28 Apr 2007 4:36 PM PDT
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois wowed California Democrats at their annual convention on Saturday, drawing a more passionate welcome than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton received hours earlier in this state that carries new clout in the presidential primaries.

Can Obama’s Substance Match His Style?
Newsweek Sat, 28 Apr 2007 6:19 PM PDT
In the next two months, Barack Obama will embark on a quest to prove that he’s got as much substance as style.

Obama’s policy director, Mark Alexander, knows this all too well. His résumé looks much like Obama’s: Alexander is a graduate of Yale Law School and law professor at Seton Hall, and he is part of a new generation of African-American political stars. (He is also close to Cory Booker, the recently elected Newark, N.J., mayor.) But, unlike Obama, Alexander bears the scars of a previous presidential campaign. In 1999 he was issues director for former senator Bill Bradley, as the former NBA star mounted an insurgent challenge to Al Gore. After several months on a listening tour, Bradley offered up a detailed, $65 billion plan for universal health care. Within weeks, Gore revived his lackluster campaign by eviscerating Bradley’s plan as impractical and irresponsible. "I think that was definitely one of the reasons for the vice president’s ultimate success in the primaries," says Alexander. "It was effective campaigning, but ultimately it wasn’t helpful [to the country]." Now Alexander’s challenge is to offer up enough details to be credible, but not too many to make Obama vulnerable. "It’s important to strike that balance," he says.

Bob Somerby’s Daily Howler
On just how insidious Brian Williams’ use of right wing spin was during last week’s debate…

Where is Barack Obama coming from? [Very long article including biographic material]
New Yorker - New York,NY,USA
… and very short hair—sitting around a rectangle of pushed-together tables in a nondescript room, talking with their junior senator, Barack Obama. …

There are three things that Democratic political candidates tend to do when talking with constituents: they display an impressive grasp of the minutiae of their constituents’ problems, particularly money problems; they rouse indignation by explaining how those problems are caused by powerful groups getting rich on the backs of ordinary people; and they present well-worked-out policy proposals that, if passed, would solve the problems and put the powerful groups in their place. Obama seldom does any of these things. He tends to underplay his knowledge, acting less informed than he is. He rarely accuses, preferring to talk about problems in the passive voice, as things that are amiss with us rather than as wrongs that have been perpetrated by them. And the solutions he offers generally sound small and local rather than deep-reaching and systemic.

The ‘Rat-Ballers’: Obama’s High School Crew
ABC News Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:10 PM PDT
Barack Obama’s Childhood Classmates, Friends and Teammates Talk About the Man They Knew as ‘Barry’

The basketball court became a place of refuge. His old friends say they had no idea of his struggle until they read his book more than 20 years later.

"In reading that … it doesn’t surprise me at all that he said that because we were all going through our things out there," said Lum. "I mean, I didn’t know to the extent of what he was going through for sure but we were all going through our things. And maybe that’s why, the basketball court was kind of, a sanctuary for us too. … Kind of bring us together and. … Get us away."

And it would become the very place where Obama would refine perhaps his most important talent: his ability to communicate.

"He could beat anybody in a debate and we wouldn’t even realize we got beat because we’d end up agreeing with him," Hale said. "He would be very straight to the point and then he’d just have a way of just getting people to agree."

Barack Obama in the Lowcountry
WCSC - Charleston,SC,USA
He spoke about education issues nationwide, an issue that wasn’t discussed in Thursday’s debate. The war in Iraq was also big on Obama’s political agenda. …