Many of my online Obama supporters have been asking this question over the past few days, and I am sure are bound to be thinking this again today.  Does Obama have a problem with poorer, less educated, white rural voters?  What should be done?

Well, yesterday, I drove from Connecticut down to Virginia to pick up one of my daughters from college.  I stopped in Martinsburg WV and spent a few hours canvassing for Obama.  Martinsburg is in Berkeley County, part of the Washington DC exurbs.  Obama did better in Berkeley County than just about any other county, with the exception of neighboring Jefferson County.  Yet my experiences did not match those of the pundits.

I didn't see a poorer less educated rural white America.  I saw a wild and wonder state that is part of the United States of America.  To borrow the words from a famous speech,

I don’t like attack diaries, but today is too important a day and the emails I got today were too important to leave without highlighting them.  I am on the Clinton and the Edwards mailing lists.  Here is what I got from the two campaigns:

Chelsea Clinton wrote to say:

I love talking to people who are thinking about supporting my mom -- about why I believe in her and why I support her as a young American, a woman, and her daughter!

I also love talking to people who already support my mom's campaign. Every day, when people tell me they're voting for my mom, putting their faith in her, using their voice to encourage others to support her and working hard for her, I grow more proud.

I've been campaigning with her across the country -- and I'm definitely planning on being at the next debate. Would you like to join me? The campaign is picking an online supporter to watch the January 31 debate in Los Angeles with me and to meet my mom. I know she'll be thrilled to meet you -- she is so grateful for how much every supporter has done for her campaign.

Last night, I spent some time with Ned Lamont as he spoke to folks in Second Life.  There were many supporters who showed up, people who had been moved by Ned’s campaign.  As I reflected back on 2006, it struck me that perhaps we are undervaluing moral victories.

We all want to get agents of change elected.  We may factor ‘electablity’ into our calculations.  Clearly ‘electability’ is a factor, but people can make big changes without being elected.

Let’s take a couple of examples.  Who do you think are the politicians that have had the biggest positive effect on our country?

Yet again, I'll step into my role as the old curmudgeon that has little use for the bickering little hit diaries that go back and forth here on DailyKos, or even for the campaign diaries pushing a particular candidates position on one issue or another.  We need to get beyond the circle of DailyKos.  We need to be in the streets.

The Obama campaign did a great job of getting people to the caucuses in Iowa.  The Edwards campaign's message beat out the Clinton message, even though he was vastly outspent.  What we need is everyone to step away from the computer, and get out and phonebank, canvas, do visibility or whatever else you can to get the best agent of change elected.

I hope, forty years from now, an opponent of Fiona’s in a Presidential primary, will look back at this blog post and prepare a press release stating, "AHA!  I told you Fiona had been planning to run for President for years!".  Yes, if you ask her, she wants to be President.  She would sure do a better job than our current President, and she knows that.

I give a lot of credit to people like Howard Dean, John Edwards, and Barack Obama for returning the role of President to its proper place in the American dream.  The Presidency should be an honorable office sought by people hoping to make our country better for everyone.

When Fiona isn’t dreaming of being a President or Congresswoman, she is dreaming of being a paleontologist, a marine biologist or a fashion designer.  The dreams of childhood, we need people like John Edwards or Barack Obama to help make the American Dream and the dreams of childhood a little more realistic.

I must have Ronald Reagan on the brain recently.  When I wrote about Elizabeth Edwards meeting with Bloggers in New Hampshire, I borrowed his line "Tear down this wall."  This post borrows from Ronald Reagan’s famous advertisement, "It’s morning in America".

While I strongly disliked Ronald Reagan for many of his policies, I did admire his ability to communicate, and I’ve longed for better communicators and communications on the current political landscape.

This morning, Elizabeth Edwards spoke with a bunch of bloggers at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH.  I’ve just gotten back to Connecticut after driving up for the event.  I hope to write a detailed report of the event later.  However, she spent a bit of time answering a question that I asked her and I want to focus on that in particular.

I read a lot of blogs, especially those beyond the progressive political blogosphere.  One great community of bloggers are the homeschooling bloggers.  Various news reports that I’ve read of the Edwards campaign say that Elizabeth is homeschooling her two youngest children on the campaign trail.  I wanted to hear what she had to say about it and what she and John were learning about education, should he become president.

My regular readers will know that I am an Edwards supporter.  While my question wasn’t planted, it was a softball question that I hoped she would be able to hit out of the park.  She did an even better job than I had hoped for.

I must admit that Glamour is not one of the magazines I regularly read.  I dislike the role of being a thin sexy shopper that it seems to promote.  It might be that there is something useful between the covers, but It isn’t a place I normally look for inspiration.

However, it is a place that many people look, and last night, I received an email about their Women of the Year.

Yesterday, we went to church.  The first reading of the day was from Ecclesiasticus.  It is that wonderful section that begins, "Let us now sing the praises of famous men."  It talks about the great variety of famous men, leaders, musicians, writers, and others of home there is no memory.  It is a great reading for the Sunday after All Saints Day; a reminder that we are all in this together, the rich and the forgotten.

It is also provided the title for James Agee and Walker Evans monumental book, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men".  That book was written about poverty in the south during the Great Depression.  Now, over seventy years later, we have others to now praise famous men.

John Edwards, as part of his "American Heroes Week" spent last Saturday with a bunch of supporters helping rebuild home in New Orleans.  We still have poverty in our country, and Hurricane Katrina briefly blew away the façade that had been hiding it.

I wrote this for a different blog, with different demographics, but I believe that the message of the college application essay and the call to action that I’ve added on to it applies very well to the DailyKos community as we head into important elections next week.

According to Quantcast, my readers are ‘primarily older’.  Many of you many not remember your college own application essays and may be more concerned about college application essays of your children.

I must admit, I don’t remember my college application essay, and I suspect I would be embarrassed to read what I wrote thirty years ago.  There is a standard sort of question that typically gets asked, "Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you."  Perhaps this would be another good blog meme for people to explore.

Wednesday, Kim, Fiona and I drove up to New Hampshire to help with the Edwards campaign on the day of the Democratic Presidential Debate as well as to give Fiona a chance to spend some time with her cousins.  It provided a wonderful microcosm of the political landscape.

Read more below the fold.

Avery Doninger is a high school student in Burlington, CT, who referred to members of her school administration as DoucheBags in a LiveJournal post.  When the school administration heard about it, they stripped her of her post as class secretary, forbade her from running for class office.  Prevented students from wearing T-Shirts supporting her, and falsified election returns and school records concerning the event.

A preliminary junction trial started yesterday.  Below the fold is an email that I sent to executives of the insurance company that retained the lawyer who referred to the school as an asylum and the students as inmates.

Plenty of people have posted their reactions to yesterday’s Democratic Debate already, but I thought I would take a little time and post some reflections on the larger issues.

A key theme of the debates was the need for change, yet there was little discussion about changes of the way the debates should be handled.  Initially, I was frustrated at the non-answers by the candidates, yet as I listened, my frustration rapidly changed to Stephanapoulos.

It wasn’t the fact that the moderator was a senior advisor to Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign, and later became Clinton’s communication director.  The real problem was the underlying context of the debate.

Well, it is the end of the quarter, and everyone is out asking for money.  I’m told that Jim Himes, who is running for Congress in Connecticut’s Fourth District, the only House District in New England currently held by a Republican, will stop by to introduce himself around noon tomorrow.

You can read more about him on the Himes for Congress website.  I first got to know Jim back in 2004 when my wife ran for State Representative in Connecticut.  The State Rep district covered some of Greenwich and some of Stamford.  Jim was the Democratic Town Chair in Greenwich at the time, a position he still holds today.  He was a great help to Kim’s campaign and Kim and I are glad to be doing all we can to help him out.

So, please, stop by tomorrow at noon.  Meet Jim.  Help him celebrate what I’m hoping will be the end of a great first quarter for him in fundraising, and more importantly, in building a group of volunteers that will make his campaign a real people powered campaign.

It is good to see a major media outlet talk about the issue of poverty in America, even if the article is based on a false premise.  The article "In Aiding Poor, Edwards Built Bridge to 2008", June 22, suggests, "the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself".

No, the main beneficiaries were the thousands of students who went to hear Sen. Edwards as he visited college campuses around the country and found the hope and the inspiration to address problems of poverty in our country.  The main beneficiaries were residents of New Orleans who saw students Sen. Edwards led to help with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.  The main beneficiaries are all of us that have stopped and thought a little bit more about the issue of poverty in America, thanks to Sen. Edwards.

The problem with the New York Times article is manifold.  It suggests that the rich cannot care about poverty, that throwing money at a problem is the only solution and that candidates cannot care about issues.

I’ve spent most of my professional life working on Wall Street, and a fair amount of that time working with hedge funds.  Over the past few years, I’ve moved over to spend more of my time working with politics and non-profits.  Now, the mainstream media is starting to look at hedge funds and lending and how this relates to the political process.

John Edwards worked for a hedge fund.  Barack Obama is having a major fundraising event in Greenwich CT at the house of one of the top names in hedge funds.  Chris Dodd received over $380,000 in donations from a single hedge that has become a big player in funding campaigns.

A lot of people are attacking these candidates, yet these attacks seem to reflect a basic lack of understanding about hedge funds, lending or finance.  More details below the fold.

In his op-ed in the L.A. Times, Ronald Brownstein asks the question, "whether Obama is "blue enough" to increase his support among blue-collar whites."  It is based on a couple false dichotomies that he has set up.  He appears to think there are only two candidates that are running for the Democratic nomination, and that there are only two constituency groups, the "upscale "wine track" candidates and blue-collar "beer track" contenders".

Well, as the great quote, originally from George Bernard Shaw, that Robert Kennedy was so well know for, "Some men see things as they are and say 'Why?' I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"

The mainstream media is setting up a false dichotomy.  It is the same false dichotomy that Sen. Obama spoke about at the Democratic National Convention.

This morning, as Senator Edwards headed to his major policy speech in Manchester, New Hampshire, he took time for a conference call with the media.  I had received a media alert about the conference call and asked if I, as a blogger, could participate.  Sen. Edwards press secretary responded "We are blogger friendly"

As you come to expect with political candidates, the call started a little late.  Sen. Edwards started off outlining the speech that he should be giving as I write up this blog post.

He said the speech is focused on the fundamental transformational changes needed here in the States and in the across the world such as dealing with poverty, health care, global warming, a new energy economy, and improvements to education.  He went on to say that he would be talking a lot about global issues which would be the newest part to people in the press corps.