Hey, Dean is first.

9:21 AM EDT

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62486.html

Barack Obama: First CRM President?

By Erika Morphy
CRM Buyer
Part of the ECT News Network
04/08/08 4:00 AM PT

Sen. Barack Obama may be the first U.S. president to use CRM technology as a tool to encourage constituent feedback and participation, if his campaign's efforts along those lines are any indication. Of course, that's assuming he wins -- and his staffers are hoping CRM will help accomplish that feat.

...

The more comprehensive of the RightNow (Nasdaq: RNOW) initiatives, though, is the Obama Answer Center, says Ives.

"When you come to the Answer Center the first question is, 'What is the Answer Center and how does it work?' The campaign can then adjust the next questions depending on the topics of most interest. For example, when I looked the next question was 'Has Senator Obama released his tax returns?' Clicking on this you go to a format used for all questions. This happens to be the standard RightNow template for answer centers so many people remark that they have seen this format before in such places as Environmental Protection Agency, Electronic Arts, and Nikon, [and they] understand it," he explains.

...

Ives supports Obama politically, he told CRM Buyer, but that is not the reason he is writing about his campaign's use of technology.

"As far as I know," he commented, "the only other presidential candidate to use CRM technology in the race was Mitt Romney." However, Romney's deployment of Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) did not match Obama's outreach to voters and campaign staff, he added.

"What is unique is that he is giving his volunteers tools to use themselves," Ives said. According to Ives, talk on the campaign trail is that should Obama win the presidency he would continue to communicate with constituents through the Web.

It would be difficult to match Obama's level of tech outreach, David E. Johnson, CEO of the political consultancy Strategic Vision, told CRM Buyer.

"Obama is doing everything right in the tech world, while Hillary is playing catch up," he observed.

That assessment is not based on Clinton's ignorance of the wonders of Web 2.0 technologies, Johnson was quick to add. Rather, it is her campaign staff's failure to recognize they would be running a different race than they are right now.

...

Dr. Howard Dean, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Barack Obama are number one.

Looking forward to questioning from all three candidates today.

And, as always, . . . . .

9:25 AM EDT

Howard, the 50-state trend-setter.

Thanks Phil and Monica, etc. in previous thread, your impressions of Pennsylvania.

And campaigning in all fifty states is the "novel concept" that terry McAuliffe and Senator Clinton do not seem to get.

9:34 AM EDT

Howard, the presidential candidate internet-usage trendsetter.

fyi - I didn't know what CRM software stood for, so I looked it up -- Customer Relationship Management.

Fifty states and DC.

Hmm..after all these years, i thought these guys were singing "I had too much to DRINK last night"..............lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-oCd23W7r8&NR=1

novel = qualint = effective

WV - Charlston Gazette endorses Barack.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4...

Thanks for including D.C. Rich.

Of course, D.C. doesn't count because it's "too black".

Virginia doesn't count because it's too Virginia-y.

10:23 AM EDT

step right up:

http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2008/April_08/04082008_03.asp

By GM Today Staff

April 8, 2008

Nelson said if selected as a delegate, he will take a week of vacation and pay his own way as a citizen.

"There will be no city dollars used," he said.

...

I am watching the Gen Petraeus hearing on CSPAN.  What a bunch of b.s.  so far.

Everyone in America needs to rent and watch In The Valley of Elah.  Wake up to what a devastating effect this immoral war is having on the men and women serving in Iraq.

Ryan Crocker speaking now acknowledged the chairman, and then McCain by name.  No others, how rude.

Obama needs to emphasize he is going all the way so Clinton doesn't pretend if she squeaks out a win in PA she should get the nomination

turn the tables on her and force her to stay in so the DLC is bankrupted and goes home for good

press the advantage all the way to Denver

Obama now attracts 51% of the vote while Hillary Clinton earns 40%. That’s the lowest total ever recorded for Clinton since the contest became a two-person race

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Today at noon Eastern, Rasmussen Reports will release new polling data for the Pennsylvania Primary. Just over a month ago, Clinton had a wide lead in the Keystone State. That lead declined steadily until it tumbled to five percentage points a week ago. In North Carolina, the trend is also moving in Obama’s direction. It now appears that Clinton’s only remaining path to the nomination is for Obama to make a mistake. Rasmussen Markets data now gives Obama an 85.5 % chance to win the Democratic nomination.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Obama needs to emphasize he is going all the way

Only candidates on the verge of elimination do that.

McCain,

Lieberman,

warmongers

Inhofe,

ba*turd

SUSA has Hillary way way up in PA - 18 points in fact.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4...

All the other polls show tightening but SUSA has been spot on this primary season. ;-( I think PA will be like OH.

All the other polls show tightening but SUSA has been spot on this primary season. ;-( I think PA will be like OH.

If so, it won't be the overwhelming win Hill needs to overrtake Obama's lead in delegates and votes.

The departure of Mark Penn and Hilly being caught out in yet another untrue campaign story certainly don't add to her luster.

Supposedly Penn is gone because he dared to advise one of his day-job customers, Colombia, on their free trade agreement, which Hill opposes, at least for now. But then it comes out that she owes him $2.5 million which she hasn't ponied up. So it looks like maybe he left to cut his losses.

Then she tells, again and again, a story about an Ohio woman who died because she didn't have $100 to pay an emergency room fee. In reality, while the woman did die, she was fully insured and admitted to the hospital without a problem. The hospital came forward and demanded Hill stop telling this story.

Supposedly now it was hearsay from one of her supporters, but please, national campaigns fact check or are supposed to.

She may still lose PA.

-- volney

That goof three threads down, Patrick McHenry (I can picture him waving a pocket knife and shouting, "Give me McLiberty or give me McDeath!") is part of a GOP planned disinformation campaign on Iraq.

By griping about overzealous security at the green zone gym, he is painting a picture that there are no dangers in Iraq and in fact, the situation is normal there.

Randy (un)Kuhl, the local Congresscritter in these parts who is one of Bush's very closest toadies, came back from an Iraq trip and waxed eloquent about the troops dining on lobster. Same bunch of bull, and I believe they are told to say this stuff.

-- volney

I wonder if the new SUSA poll was taken before  Colombia - Mark Penn.

rae - Apparently there are a lot of Hillary supporters who just aren't paying attention to the news like the rest of us. More people tune into American Idol methinks.

Thanks for including D.C. Rich.

Of course, D.C. doesn't count because it's "too black".

Virginia doesn't count because it's too Virginia-y.

Hey watch it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Quinnipiac which has been pretty reliable shows Obama gaining.  If Obama loses PA I don't think it will be by double digits.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is catching up with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary and now trails 50 - 44 percent among likely primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1327.xml?ReleaseID=1165

mary vb,

I agree, if they did pay attention, who would vote for her?

You are under-estimating how appealing a stump speech on the economy Hillary is giving right now.

she is running as a progressive populist and that is an appeal that is bound to have some positive response

I wonder if the new SUSA poll was taken before  Colombia - Mark Penn. 

Waiting to see if the corporate media picks up on this or gives her a pass...

Hillary's Latest Whopper

In Eugene, Ore., Saturday. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., attempted to change the measure by which anyone might assess who criticized the Iraq war first, her or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., by saying those keeping records should start in January 2005, when Obama joined the Senate. (A measure that conveniently avoids her October 2002 vote to authorize use of force against Iraq at a time that Obama was speaking out against the war.) She claimed that using that measure, she criticized the war in Iraq before Obama did.

But Clinton's claim was false.

Clinton on Saturday told Oregonians, "when Sen. Obama came to the Senate he and I have voted exactly the same except for one vote. And that happens to be the facts. We both voted against early deadlines. I actually starting criticizing the war in Iraq before he did... [emphasis added]

Scrambling to support their boss's claim, Clinton campaign officials pointed to a paper statement Clinton issued on Jan. 26, 2005, explaining her vote to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State."

But Obama offered criticisms of the war in Iraq eight days before that, directly to Rice, in his very first meeting as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 18.[2005]