Around the Penn Blogosphere - 2/10/08

First, I want to welcome my friend Dan to the blogging world with his new blog The IV-Tini Chronicles which will focus on politics, sports and other fun things from the perspective of a Democrat from Wisconsin. He should give The Appletonian a run for his money.

• Stu asks whether the Black Eyed Peas endorsement helps Obama - I say Yes! If only to continue to introduce Obama to music fans who are potential new voters.
  
• Dan looks at how the Wisconsin primary will be a crucial state during this primary cycle. I think it will come down to Ohio and Texas, which are Hillary's firewall.
• Billy wants you to help remind governor Rendell what democracy is. Go sign the petition over at Casino-Free Philly.

~BT

Liveblogging South Carolina Democratic Primary #2

Polls are about to close and I just watched a great interview that Keith Olbermann had with South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, the House Majority Clyburn commented on the injection of racial politics into the race and the backlash from voters that is being seen in the exit polls. It seems that South Carolina voters, regardless of race, were displeased with the negative campaigning and bickering between the camps.

Christy Hardin Smith over at Firedoglake.com had this great post about the influence of the economic disparities on the racial divide that the media has been focusing on.

Shaila Dewan (whose reporting I generally love) had a glimpse of economic disparities along the racial divide in South Carolina today that is worth discussing at length. She focuses on a town called Orangeburg -- Mr. ReddHedd and I always joke that all roads in SC lead to Orangeburg because, truly, they all seem to do just that when we are driving down that way. And this struck me in her piece:

“My cousin works at McDonald’s,” she said. “She said some people like working there because they get benefits. That’s what they go for now.”

Because Orangeburg is a blue county in a red state, it has been visited by all the Democratic candidates, some more than once. Health care, gasoline prices and trade imbalances are all pocketbook issues here....

Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a state legislator who represents part of Orangeburg County, said some of the unemployment among blacks stemmed from poor education by the state’s money-starved rural schools. The school system was recently portrayed in a documentary about education along Interstate 95 called “Corridor of Shame,” a phrase Mr. Obama used in the debate in Myrtle Beach on Monday.

“The issue is education and the effect of a lack of a quality education on the level playing field,” Ms. Cobb-Hunter said.

I'm hearing so much economic uncertainty and fears across the economic divide -- and from readers everywhere across the country. Much more than concerns about any other issue at the moment, and I'm wondering if this election cycle is going to sustain an "it's the economy again, stupid" line of electoral questions all the way through -- or whether this is a temporary outgrowth of market/housing volatility. Somehow, I think the questions are going to keep on coming for quite a while. Anyone else sensing that "kitchen table" pocketbook politics is going to be key this year?

Any doubts that the media is enjoying stoking the race versus gender questions? Read on. Jeffrey Feldman has a thought-provoking piece on indentity politics worth your time today, which makes an excellent riposte.

And the winner is...

~BT

Online Coverage of Tonight's Primary Results

Brave New Films will be hosting live video coverage of tonight's New Hampshire primary .

WHEN: TONIGHT AT 7PM ET
HOSTS: Cenk Uygur and Wes Clark, Jr.
WHERE: http://bravenewfilms.org/election

SCHEDULE:
7:10: Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
7:40: Matthew Yglesias, The Atlantic
7:50: Robin Abcarian, L.A. Times
8:00: Billy Wimsatt, League of Young Voters
8:10: Rachel Sklar, The Huffington Post
8:20: Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake
8:30: Jim Dean, Democracy For America
8:40: Steve Clemons, The Note
9:00: Lane Hudson, News for the Left
9:10: Isaiah Poole, TomPaine.com
9:40: James Rucker, Color of Change
10:00: Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen
10:10: Eric Boehlert, Media Matters

...and more still being added...

I missed the Iowa live coverage, but read that it was great. I am going to miss the live coverage tonight, but will catch up on all of the results when I get home. I also just got a call from Spencer Scharff, C'06, who was in Iowa helping out the Obama campaign and got to witness things first hand. He confirmed much of what I have been reading/seeing both online and on television.

A few more Facebook status updates since my last post:

• Dorna Mohaghegh loves this quote from an ABC news article about turnout in the NH primaries: "towns are starting to get concerned that they don't have enough ballots." Hell yea.
• Alexis Ruby Howe is has her fingers crossed for Hillary in NH!
• Steven Parks likes Obama, but likes Hillary a lot more…since when did being a candidate with experience, substance, and an actual plan for our country become a bad thing?!

~BT

Update: Jason Lee, a Wharton junior, who I had the pleasure to work with on the Undergraduate Assembly last year, also emailed me to let me know he was in NH working for Obama. He said it was "crazy".

Around the Blogosphere - New Hampshire Edition

• Matt Stoller gives his prediction for the Democratic New Hampshire Primary:

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Obama will win the New Hampshire primary by a substantial margin tomorrow, followed by Clinton and then Edwards. I know that sounds crazy, considering that Obama is so anti-establishment that he has raised only $100 million, garnered the support of a good number of ex-Clinton administration officials, and is treated exceptionally well by the press. But he could just pull it off.

• Jerome Armstrong blogs about the state of the race.

• Markos thinks the Obama wave is more like a "tsunami":

This thing is becoming a tsunami, and that's before Obama even wins New Hampshire and South Carolina. I don't see how Clinton recovers.

~BT

A Penn Blogosphere?

After noticing an uptick in traffic and checking my handy StatCounter report, I realized that I had been linked by Kevin Burke, a fellow Penn blogger. He put together a list of Penn blogs and I have to say that I was pretty impressed that he was able to find them all. When I tried to find other Penn blogs I only came up with this:

• The Spin
• Sphinx Citings
• Sophomore News & Events
• Penn Amnesty Intl
• I'm not even hungry

It was also pretty cool to see that someone I know, Stu Stein, is also blogging at The Un-Wharton.

This could be the start of a real "Penn Blogosphere" where Penn bloggers actually interact online and become responsive to one another. The first step to solidifying the network would be for all of us to link to one another and aim to increase our collective readership. Maybe it's just among seniors, but it feels like most Penn students don't actually read blogs regularly, let alone anything beyond the major professional blogs. I would like to see more Penn students reading blogs and for those blogs to have conversations about what's going on at Penn. Ultimately, we could get to the point where those conversations actually have an impact on campus.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

~BT