GOBAMA!

A couple days removed from the Failure State's primary, things are looking up for the intrepid Senator from Illinois. Not that they shouldn't be anyway; despite the way the media is spinning it, the fact is that he basically tied with Clinton in NH, and the only reason it's a "big loss "is because polling data in that state was about as reliable as a holy umbrella in a downpour. That's why it felt like being robbed, when it should've felt more like an acceptable loss. Ah well, we move on quickly, don't we?

The good news for Barack came in today, and it made me cheer as loudly as one can without disturbing the people around you in the office. First came the endorsement of the SEIU, a small but not insignificant union in Nevada. Then the big daddy union in Nevada, the Culinary Workers Union, fell in line too and pledged to do all it could to help Obama win the state's caucuses. This is a huge coup for Obama in a state where the caucuses aren't projected to have nearly as many people as are even in that union (60,000). I predict that, like Iowa and New Hampshire, there will be record turnout, and with these big endorsements and his traditional pull of new, young, and independent voters, Obama should carry the state. I hope.

The other bit of interesting and arguably good news is that John Kerry endorsed Obama. The significance here is that Kerry is one of the "old and entrenched" politicians that Obama is ostensibly talking about all the time. He's definitely of the old guard, and despite that pretty bad loss in '04, Kerry carries some political weight within the party. Could this be a signal that the power struggle that will inevitably begin to engulf the Democratic Party has begun? The primaries are always about strategically picking a side anyway, but it's taken on a whole new light this time around. Choosing the candidate isn't just about deciding who will try to dethrone the Republicans, it's about deciding where the power in the party will rest. Is it with the old establishment that Clinton represents, or the newer, younger, and thus far ignored Dems that have rallied to Obama's cause? Politics as usual or a change, yes, but the future direction of the party is probably what's most at stake. Even the news media can sense it, even if they take the asinine view of it by speculating if or how much of a slap in the face this endorsement is to Edwards and Clinton. It's not, in my mind, a slap so much as a shot across the broadside. Kerry's thrown in his lot against the establishment. Where will other prominent Dems fall when this struggle really gets going?