Why should all viral emails be full of negativity and slander? Here's one that calls for positive action:

iowa.barackobama.com

barackobama.com/match

(HELP THE IOWA CAMPAIGN - Please Forward This To At Least 1 Of Your Groups Or Re-Post As A Bulletin On Your Myspace - Thank You) -

Despite The Media Continuing To Strongly Support Its Establishment Candidate, We Are Now Seeing The Definitive Trending Of Likely Caucus Voters And The Evidence On The Ground Clearly Suggesting That Senator Obama Is On His Way To Winning In Iowa, And Has Now Moved Into 1st Place In The Iowa Polls - This Is Exciting! The Effectiveness Of Our Ground Organization Is Absolutely Phenomenal!

NOW IS THE TIME TO RE-DOUBLE OUR EFFORTS!

Senator Obama's Historic Jefferson-Jackson Address In Iowa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tydfsfSQiYc

New Field Tactics To Get Volunteers Out To The Iowa Caucus:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/24/123937/56

The Obama 5-Step Process is now just an incredible success in IOWA, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, California, and Michigan. As a direct result of employing this process, Jill, a mother of 4, was responsible for 23 brand new people joining the Obama campaign in one week alone. Continue spreading the word. . .

Our objective is to organize the citizens of America around the goal of making Senator Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States.

"Some men see things as they are and say why; I dream things that never were, and say why not?" -Senator Robert F. Kennedy

In working to succeed on this historic mission, we should all have an actual, literal picture in our minds of Senator Obama taking the presidential oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capital on January 20th, 2009. We should all hold this picture in our minds and re-visit it often during this visionary campaign. If we see it and believe in it, we will achieve this for our country.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." -President John F. Kennedy

So what can we all do in this campaign for our country?

We continue to receive emails that say something along these lines: "I believe in Senator Obama, he's the 1st candidate to come along and really inspire me to become involved with a campaign, I've signed up on the website, now what do I do?" This campaign will succeed in making Barack Obama the next President of the United States, and this is being accomplished by doing what every successful organization in the world does . . . . . by duplicating a system of success.

We are all so very fortunate to have this medium available to us so that we can all share different ideas and methods with each other. The following represents just one idea, one approach, one answer to the question, that has proven thus far to be profoundly effective. It's a 5-step, cookie-cutter, duplicable process that everyone of us in this campaign can take ourselves through and then duplicate in order to help propel our heroic leader onto victory. The Obama 5-Step Process:

Step 1. Join this campaign at barackobama.com
Step 2. Make a monetary contribution and then get yourself a t-shirt and a bumper sticker.
Step 3. Join 5 (or more) national and local online Obama groups through the website to get plugged into people and events. It costs nothing and takes no more than 10 minutes to do.
Step 4. Make sure you're registered to vote, and take at least 1 unregistered citizen that you know out to the homepage (icon bottom center) to get them registered to vote as well.
Step 5. Talk to 10 (or more) friends and family members, and encourage them to go to the website to see for themselves the incredible energy and optimism of this historic Obama for President movement. (Once they join, you can encourage them to repeat this 5-step process, and so on).

Look at each step, play with the numbers, do the math, and it becomes very easy to see why this is having such a dramatic impact on the campaign.

We have the most organized, the most highly networked, and the most energetic presidential campaign in America today. We are seeing first-hand that exposing people to this process is exponentially increasing our numbers of supporters. We're taking this and we're now running with it all over the country. We should certainly continue sharing best practices and 'ways that work' with each other from across the nation, so by all means, please forward this on to your friends and to your groups and discuss in your local meetings further implementation in your area of this remarkably powerful ground strategy.

Make sure everyone has a copy of The Obama 5-Step Process with them when actually out in the field, when writing letters, and when campaigning on-line and over the phone. It's pure power in your hands.

We're gonna win the White House.


"Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now; We're On The Move!"

This is one of those times in presidential politics when the public is hungry for change. Even the Republicans running for president are running away from George W. Bush.

This is hardly the first time in recent memory when the public has been ready for a change. And when that is the mood of the country, the candidate who wins is the one who offers the most inspiring vision, not the one who points to the longest resume.

In 1960, JFK promised to get the country moving again and he defeated the more experienced Vice President Nixon.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter promised to move the country away from the corruption of Watergate and he defeated the more experienced President Ford.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to move the country away from Carter's seeming ineptitude and he defeated the more experienced President Carter.

In 1992, Bill Clinton campaigned as a change agent, calling for a move away from the economic policies of the Reagan-Bush years and he defeated the more experienced President Bush.

In fact, in the past half century, the candidate with the most experience has won in only two situations: where the opposing candidate's policies were widely unpopular (Goldwater in 64 was too far to the right and McGovern in 72 was too far to the left) or where the voters were happy with the incumbent (Eisenhower in 56, Reagan in 84, Bush running as the incumbent VP and Reagan heir in 88, Clinton in 96, and, thanks to 9/11, Bush in 04). In none of these elections could the challenger persuade the public that a fundamental change was needed. Thus, experience and familiarity won out.

Barack Obama is clearly the agent of change in this election. He opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, at a time when the war was popular and other candidates were lining up to vote for it. He has had the vision to call for a new direction in foreign policy. He has the personal credibility to restore America's moral leadership in the world. He has the courage to suggest new approaches and has written two best selling books that lay out with an incredibly rare candor who he is and what he wants to do. He has a history of successfully bringing different groups together to fashion creative solutions to real problems, rather than just offering the same tired slogans. To protect his independence as an agent of change,he has refused money from Washington lobbyists and PACs. It is his promise of real change that explains why he is now leading in the polls in Iowa and gaining ground in New Hampshire.

Even Hillary Clinton seems to have conceded as much. She has taken increasingly to pointing to what she believes is her more extensive experience (which consists of fewer years in elected public office than Senator Obama has, but a lot of years of being married to an elected official).

But Barack Obama has the right kind of experience -- the kind that gave him the judgment to be right on Iraq, the skill to achieve success as a legislator, and the courage to offer a bolder vision of what we can be as a nation. The public understands that what matters is not the number of years on your resume, but what kind of man or woman those years have made you. And becasue that is the test, Barack Obama will win on the experience issue.

This little Kenyan boy wants to be like Barack Obama when he grows up...the power of positive role models.

I didn't think it was possible, but Barack knocked it out of the park. Watch the video.



David Yepsen wrote this in the Des Moines Register...

The leading Democratic presidential candidates showed up for the Iowa Democratic Party’s big Jefferson Jackson Dinner Saturday night.

Five of them gave really good speeches.

Barack Obama’s was excellent.

It was one of the best of his campaign. The passion he showed should help him close the gap on Hillary Clinton by tipping some undecided caucus-goers his way. His oratory was moving and he successfully contrasted himself with the others - especially Clinton - without being snide or nasty about it.

Historically, the iowa party’s “JJ” dinner is a landmark event in Democratic presidential caucus campaigns. All the key party activists, donors and players from the state are present. This year, about 9,000 of them showed up, most were from Iowa though there was some grumbling that Obama packed the place with people from Illinois. The charge was denied by the Obama people, who were clearly pleased they beat the other candidates in the noise war inside Veterans Memorial Auditorium.

A candidate who does well at a JJ is quickly in the political buzz around Iowa. A candidate who does poorly can be quickly written off by some important players in the party. Candidates also know the event provides them with an opportunity to sound new themes, launch new attacks or mount a defense of their weaknesses. Local and national observers show up to chronicle the changes.

Obama was particularly impressive Saturday night. Should he win the Iowa caucuses, Saturday’s dinner will be remembered as one of the turning points in his campaign in here, a point where he laid down the marker and began closing on Clinton, the national frontrunner. For example:

*He said the Iraq war “should have never been authorized and should have never been waged,” a shot at the votes Clinton and most of the others cast in favor of it.

*He said the nation has a “moment of great opportunity” and “we have a chance to bring the country together to tackle problems that George Bush made far worse and that festered long before George Bush took office.” Translation: Clinton is divisive and there were problems the Clinton era didn’t solve.

*He said “the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won’t do it in this election.” Translation: Democrats can’t win running a Bill Clinton campaign again.

*He said “Not answering questions because we’re afraid our answers just won’t be popular just won’t do it.” Translation: Clinton doesn’t take questions at some of her events. Now she’s bogged down in a flap over staffers planting questions for her when she does and this was neat way to remind Democrats of it without tweaking Clinton directly.”

*He said “telling Americans what they think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won’t do it.” Translation: Obama is often inclined to say things party interest groups don’t want to hear - like the need for school reform, merit pay, more efficient cars or money to rebuild the military. She panders or is mushy.

*He said “triangulating and poll-driven positions because we’re worried what Mitt or Rudy might say about us just won’t do it.” He said he offers “change that is not just a slogan” and “change we can believe in.” Polls were a hallmark of the Clinton era.

*He said he wanted to “stop talking about the outrage of 47 million Americans without health care and start actually doing something about it.” That was a smooth way to remind the audience how Clinton’s effort at national health care failed.

*There were also references to not taking money from lobbyists. And he said “I am running for president because I am sick and tired of Democrats thinking the only way to look tough on national security it talking and acting and voting like George Bush Republicans.” Ouch.

His coup de grace came with this: “When I am the nominee of this party, the Republican nominee will not be able to say I voted for the war in Iraq, or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran, or that I support Bush-Cheney policies of not talking to leaders that we don’t like.”

“I don’t want to spend the next year or the next four years refighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s,” a reference to the polarization of the Clinton years. “I don’t want to pit red America against blue America.”

The speech was also noteworthy because of the hour it was given. He was the last one to speak and didn’t start until after 11 p.m. That’s because the Iowa party loaded up the program with a bunch of Iowa politicians, who, well, just aren’t in the same league with their presidential candidates but whose egos just couldn’t keep them off the big stage.

It was a little like listening to a long Beethoven symphony while having some kid play a Tonette between movements.

And Obama can sometimes be flat or tired when speaks late at night. He can meander or sound wonkish and hesitant. Not Saturday night. (He came fired up and ready to go, to borrow a phrase.) At one point, he invoked Martin Luther King and his cadence even included the uplifting touches and quavering voice of a traditional black preacher’s sermon.

While the Democratic candidates all had a good night, Obama clearly had the best. Now we’ll have to see if he’s got anything left for Tim Russert this morning. Obama faces one of the toughest questioners in the business on NBCs Meet the Press at 8 a.m. Iowa time after only a few hours of sleep.

Senator Barack Obama walks in front of a large crowd of supporters and a marching band on the way to the Veterans Auditorium in Iowa Saturday.

This video contains what appears to be about 300 Barack Obama supporters leading a massive cheer in Iowa (what part, I don't know) yesterday.