Recently, Barack Obama has taken to the editorial pages of several major American news publications, becoming a leader in the Democratic field in outlining policy and defining the direction of the debate. While he recently outlined an aggressive policy on predatory subprime mortgage lending, he has focused much of his efforts on foreign policy, such as his op-ed in the Miami Herald calling for a relaxation of the Cuba embargo. Tomorrow, in the New York Daily News, he calls for both diplomacy and divestment in Iran. Obama begins, perhaps predictably, by criticizing the Bush Administration's policy on Iran.

The decision to wage a misguided war in Iraq has substantially strengthened Iran, which now poses the greatest strategic challenge to U.S. interests in the Middle East in a generation. Iran supports violent groups and sectarian politics in Iraq, fuels terror and extremism across the Middle East and continues to make progress on its nuclear program in defiance of the international community. Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared that Israel must be "wiped off the map."

In response, the Bush administration's policy has been tough talk with little action and even fewer results.

Today, in an opinion piece in the Financial Times entitled Fine unscrupulous lenders, Barack Obama introduced his plan to solve the financial crisis brought on by the meltdown in the subprime mortgage sector. Obama started out with a rebuke of subprime industry practices, along with a stearn warning about the potential consequences of the present crisis. He also indicted the lobbying culture in Washington as complicit in the problem:

The implosion of the subprime lending industry is more than a temporary blip in our econ­omic progress. It is a cancer that, given today's integrated financial markets, threatens to spread with devastating impact to housing and to our economy as a whole, unless we act to contain it.

It is also a parable about how an excess of lobbying and influence can defeat common sense rules of the road, placing both consumers and our nation's economic well-being at risk.

In his diary at DailyKos today, Jerome a Paris praises Obama for his strong stance on the issue:

The intro pulls no punches, and is very heartening to me - not because it's good news that a "devastating" financial crisis is likely, but because it is, as far as I can tell, the first acknowledgement by a senior politician anywhere of the gravity of what's unfolding.

If you read my diaries, you may have noted that I personally think that the financial crisis will be massive, and I also note how important it is that Democrats put the blame properly where it belongs, i.e. in the feudalistic, class warfare economic policies of the right, which use massive debt (borne by the poor) to hide the capture of an increasingly large share of the economic pie by the ultra rich.

The first step is to not deny the economic realities, and to speak up against that wall of debt, and it is good to see Obama making that step clearly.

The introductory paragraphs set the tone for a strong set of proposals to alleviate the crisis. Perhaps most prominently, Obama calls for fines to be levied against predatory subprime lenders in order to rescue homeowners facing foreclosure after receiving loans they could not afford.

We need to help struggling borrowers to weather this storm. One way to protect innocent homeowners - at least until this crisis passes - is to establish a fund to help people refinance or sell to avoid foreclosure. We can partially pay for this fund by imposing penalties on lenders that acted irresponsibly or committed fraud.

The second part of Obama's plan involves tighter regulation of the lending industry. Here, Obama returns to an old theme, arguing that it will take a reining in of the lobbying industry in order to achieve a reining in of the lending industry.

But we also know that Washington played a role. At a time when non-bank lenders were offering new kinds of mortgage, the federal government should have made sure it was all being done on the level. Instead, our government failed to provide the regulatory scrutiny that could have prevented this crisis.

While predatory lenders were driving low-income families into financial ruin, 10 of the country's largest mortgage lenders were spending more than $185 million lobbying Washington to let them get away with it.

I think we also have to recognise what will happen if we reward the mortgage industry's lobbying: they will keep using the same kinds of deceptive practices to make a quick buck, no matter what the consequences to home buyers and their communities. Rather than correct what they are doing wrong, these companies will know that if things go badly, they can always lobby Washington to let them off the hook.
(...)
If we are serious about stopping this crisis and preventing much larger turmoil in US housing markets, Washington needs to stop acting like an industry advocate and start acting like a public advocate.

Beyond reining in lobbyist power in Washington, Obama offers a specific plan to bring more regulation to the industry and help borrowers avoid taking out loans that will almost inevitably lead to foreclosure.

The rules currently governing mortgages were written in the 20th century to make borrowing easier to understand for borrowers. We need to update these rules for the 21st century and enact the regulatory and disclosure laws that the mortgage industry has been lobbying against.

That is why I have proposed a Home Score system that would create a simplified, standardised metric for home mortgages - rather like the annual percentage rate (APR), the effective interest rate a borrower ends up paying on a loan - allowing prospective home buyers easily to compare various mortgage products so they can find out whether they can afford to make the payments.

Obama's proposal is indeed an aggressive plan to save affected families from financial ruin, penalize predatory subprime lenders, and bring sensible regulation to the industry, and was described as "radical" by the very publication that carried his piece.

The proposal is among the most radical yet from a leading Democrat and comes as Washington tries to respond to a growing wave of foreclosures and a crisis in credit markets.

It also comes amid greater discussion in Washington on whether the mortgage industry - including credit rating agencies involved in rating mortgage-related securities - should be more tightly regulated to prevent a repeat of the crisis

.
While many commentators, including some liberals, have been cool to a "bailout" for people they argue were unwise to enter a contract they could not fulfill, it seems that we could treat victims of subprime lending at least as well as the corporate counterparts who have made questionable financial decisions in recent years.

Obama's article today was the latest in a series of bold progressive policy roll-outs from his campaign, and was perhaps another step toward setting himself apart from Senator Clinton as the campaign enters the post-Labor Day homestretch. The two differed on the issue in the Des Moines debate earlier this month:

There were mixed responses to a question about the mortgage crisis. Clinton said that there needed to be protections for people facing foreclosures but that the answers weren't easy, and she declined to offer any. Richardson said there needed to be tougher government regulation of the credit industry. Obama used the question to take an indirect swipe at Clinton over her defense of paid lobbyists.

"The reason that we haven't had tougher regulation in part goes back to the issue of lobbying," he said. "This is where special interests have been driving the agenda."

Clinton's plan, introduced earlier this month, lacks the teeth of the Obama plan in that it doesn't propose fines on predatory behavior. While it will be difficult to compare the specifics of the candidates' mortgage industry reform plans until Obama's is up on his website, this does represent yet another divergence in philosophy between the top two candidates. Obviously, that is something Obama will need to continue to pursue as he tries to catch Clinton in the polls.

Obama's mortgage plan is a strong progressive policy that holds predatory lenders accountable while saving thousands of families from financial ruin. The issue of subprime lending is one that has, comparatively, not been as widely discussed on liberal blogs. I have to confess to only a rudimentary knowledge of the details of the crisis garnered only from recent newspaper articles on the subject and a meager amount of research. If anyone else with more expertise or a better understanding of the issue would care to leave a comment, I'd be very interested to hear what you have to say. If you're quite lost over what is going on with the subprime lending "meltdown," here is a brief explanation.

I am an Obama supporter--unaffiliated with the campaign--offered the opportunity to blog about the campaign on the front page each Wednesday.
-Max

Unless you are one to eschew the campaign coverage offered by the traditional media, you have likely noticed in the past few weeks that coverage of the Democratic Primary has largely revolved around the actions and words of one candidate: Barack Obama.

After outlining policies challenging the conventional wisdom surrounding diplomacy with dictators, ruling out the use of nuclear weapons, and where to fight the war on terror, he was attacked by Hillary Clinton as "naive and irresponsible." The other Democratic candidates, sensing blood and opportunity, joined in the attack. Combined with similar--if perhaps more predictable--attacks from the right-wing media and Republican candidates, a narrative began to form in the traditional media's campaign reporting: Obama had committed gaffes that exposed his inexperience as a candidate, calling into question whether he was prepared to become President. As a result, Clinton has received a bump in her polling numbers. However, polling aside, there is reason for Obama supporters to view these developments in a positive light.

When Obama refused to back down from his positions, he forced the traditional media to scrutinize them beyond the previous terms of typical horserace political journalism, and a new narrative began to develop (albeit still largely within the confines of the horserace perspective). While David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer frowned on Obama's willingness to meet with leaders of problem countries and his categorical statement that he would not use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan or Pakistan, as he continued to stand up for himself in the face of criticism, he was rewarded by being cast as the candidate of "change" in the primary contest with Hillary Clinton, who was now said to represent "experience." In doing so, he successfully shed the label of naivety and inexperience on foreign policy. David Yepsen confirms the success of this maneuver in his evaluation of Sunday's debate in Des Moines:

After a string of strong debate performances so far in the campaign, Clinton seemed a little off her game at ABC-TVs gathering this morning...

But the Sunday sunrise nature of the event didn't stop some of the others from having strong performances. Obama may be the biggest winner.

He was in the cross hairs for much of the early part of the session and he stood up well to the scrutiny over his foreign policy positions and questions of whether he¹s qualified to be president...

He came off as knowledgeable and temperate. He looked presidential and unlike some of his earlier, halting debate performances, was much more polished and laid back in this one. At one point he joked: "To prepare for this debate, I rode the bumper cars at the State Fair."

His ideas, rather than being covered as gaffes from a political rookie, are now considered bold proposals defying Washington conventions, a theme that fits nicely within his campaign.

Big Ideas, Big Changes

Through his bold policy proposals and refusal to bow to conventional wisdom, Obama has been defining the direction of the race in the traditional media. Other candidates have largely been in the position of reacting to statements and proposals put out by the Obama campaign. Even before his strong debate performance Sunday, Obama was already being portrayed as the "change candidate" in mainstream political coverage. This was reflected in a CBS News Poll released August 15th:

Obama has presented himself as the candidate of change, and voters view him that way. 61% of voters think he would try new ways of solving the country's problems, and just 18% expect him to generally familiar approaches and try to do them better. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is seen as more traditional. Voters are divided: 43% expect her to try new ideas, while 40% think she would follow familiar approaches. Views among Democratic Primary voters are similar.

Voters say that new ideas matter to them--by a large margin, voters say they want innovative rather than traditional solutions to problems. 63% of voters want a President who will try new ways of solving problems, and just 24% want someone who will follow traditional approaches. Voters today express a greater desire for change than they have when this question was asked in previous years.

Barack Obama has offered arguably the most significant proposals to change Washington throughout the campaign. Both his urban poverty plan and his ethics reform proposal offered dramatic departures from current political orthodoxy. However, Obama has solidified his position as "the candidate of new ideas" over the past month largely through his foreign policy statements. While his willingness to meet with dictators, refusal to employ nuclear weapons to fight terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and his resolve to fight terror in Pakistan if that country's government cannot or will not have all been well-documented and discussed on this site, Obama's trend of bucking the foreign policy establishment continued Tuesday when, in an opinion in the Miami Herald, he called for a reversal of the Bush Administration's restrictions on Cuban Americans' ability to visit and send money to their relatives on the island.

These interests, and our support for the aspirations of the Cuban people, are ill served by the further entrenchment of the Castro regime, which is why we need to advance peaceful political and economic reform on the island. Castro's ill health and the potentially tumultuous changes looming ahead make the matter all the more urgent.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has made grand gestures to that end while strategically blundering when it comes to actually advancing the cause of freedom and democracy in Cuba. This is particularly true of the administration's decision to restrict the ability of Cuban Americans to visit and send money to their relatives in Cuba. This is both a humanitarian and a strategic issue. That decision has not only had a profoundly negative impact on the welfare of the Cuban people. It has also made them more dependent on the Castro regime and isolated them from the transformative message carried there by Cuban Americans.

Obama also opened up the possibility of negotiations with Cuba, and, possibly, an end to the embargo and normalization of relations in the future:

Accordingly, I will use aggressive and principled diplomacy to send an important message: If a post-Fidel government begins opening Cuba to democratic change, the United States (the president working with Congress) is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades. That message coming from my administration in bilateral talks would be the best means of promoting Cuban freedom. To refuse to do so would substitute posturing for serious policy -- and we have seen too much of that in other areas over the past six years.

Obama's position once again represents a departure from the Washington foreign policy establishment. In recent years, Congress and both the Clinton and Bush Administrations have taken steps to codify and expand the embargo against the Cuban Administration and the Cuban people. Today, Hillary Clinton was once again forced to stand with President Bush and the Republican Party in support of his beefed up embargo, the provisions of which seem to largely be affecting the Cuban people, rather than the Castro regime:

In an opinion column in The Miami Herald, Sen. Barack Obama assailed President Bush's policy -- which restricts Cuban Americans to visiting relatives once every three years and sending only $100 per month -- as ``strategic blundering when it comes to advancing the cause of freedom and democracy in Cuba.''

Rival Sen. Hillary Clinton said she would continue the Bush administration's hard-line stance, for the most part. Clinton's campaign said she agrees that exiles should be able to freely send money to their relatives but said she does not favor ''any wholesale, broad changes'' to the travel restrictions until Fidel Castro falls...

''She supports the embargo and our current policy toward Cuba, and until it is clear what type of political winds may come with a new government -- if there is a new government -- we cannot talk about changes to U.S. policy,'' Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said.

Two of the major Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, said Obama's proposal would bolster the Castro regime.

Once again, Obama is the candidate running against the failed Washington establishment, while Clinton is being forced to defend bad decisions by a bad President.

Judgment Matters

However, as Todd Beeton observed on Monday afternoon, Obama has work left to do to make up ground on Clinton. While I don't see the campaign abandoning the narrative of change, it has clearly introduced a new element to that argument: that Obama has shown better judgment than the other candidates in his political career, and will continue to do so in the future. Rather than representing a departure from his strategy of presenting himself as the candidate of change, Obama used the opportunity of Sunday's debate to tie his judgment into that theme and demonstrate his superior judgment and grasp of the issue:

There are only bad options and worse options, and we're going to have to exercise judgment in terms of how we execute this. But the thing I wish had happened was that all the people on this stage had asked these questions before they authorized us getting in. And I make that point--

(APPLAUSE)

--because earlier on we were talking about the issue of experience. Nobody had more experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and many of the people on this stage that authorized this war.

(APPLAUSE)

And it indicates how we get into trouble when we engage in the sort of conventional thinking that has become the habit in Washington. Now, that judgment is going to have to be exercised moving forward, and I actually think that Joe's point about partition might be the right one.

The only area I disagree with -- with Joe on that -- is that it is important for the Iraqis to arrive at the conclusion that partition makes sense, as opposed to it being imposed by the United States government.

Because I think if that happens, if the perception is that we are carving up the country as opposed to the parties arriving at a decision, then that could antagonize some of the factions and actually make the problem worse.

While "Whatever happened to the politics of hope?" is possibly the least intelligent line of commenting I've seen on this election, it is clear that Obama is necessarily getting more aggressive in making distinctions between himself and the other candidates, particularly Senator Clinton. He will have to continue to do so in order to erase the deficit he faces against Clinton in the polls. In doing so, I hope to see him continue to take on the failed Washington establishment and the failed ideologies surrounding it. Senator Clinton continues to defend such unpopular policies at not only her own electoral peril, but at the peril of the future of our country. If Senator Obama continues to push big ideas and better judgment on both the foreign and domestic policy fronts, he has a great chance of becoming the next great President of the United States of America.

To begin my stint as one of the Obama supporters on the front page, I'd like to thank Jerome for the opportunity to write here. In the tradition that has developed over the past week, I'll start my series by writing about who I am and how I've come to support Barack Obama for President.

In many ways, I fit what has become the stereotypical (though by no means accurate or all-encompassing) profile of an Obama supporter. While each of the MyDD bloggers for both the Edwards and Clinton campaigns are middle-aged, I'm still less than a month removed from celebrating my 21st birthday. I'm currently a student at Northwestern University, just outside of Chicago, further fulfilling the conventional characteristics of being a "well-educated" urbanite (well, as well-educated, in one manner of speaking, as someone my age could be, I like to think). Finally, and most importantly, I consider myself to be something of an activist, having served on the executive board of a progressive student community development group for the past 2 years, volunteered for the campaigns of netroots candidates Tim Walz (MN-01) and Dan Seals (IL-10) in 2006, and, this summer, interned for the Iowa arm of Senator Obama's Presidential Campaign.

It is from my experiences volunteering in low-income neighborhoods, studying theories of community development and social policy, and talking to hundreds of voters in small-town Minnesota and suburban Chicago that I have drawn the conclusion that Barack Obama is the best candidate to lead the Democratic Party and the country in the post-Bush years. Put simply, I find that:

1) Obama's life experiences demonstrate the greatest commitment to progressive causes and ideals of any candidate running, and from these experiences and his resulting vision he has demonstrated that he is not only the best advocate for our causes, but also has the best judgment to take them on in the Oval Office.

2) Obama is far and away the best spokesperson our Party has to offer in a time when a new era of extended Democratic and progressive dominance of government and popular political orthodoxy are within reach. An Obama Administration would be our best chance to facilitate such dominance.

Experience

It may seem strange to many of you that I would cite Obama's experience as a reason to support him in the primary, given that most of the attacks he has faced from his opponents have focused on his supposed "inexperience and naivety." Beyond throwing out platitudes about "experience that really matters," Obama's time spent as an organizer and civil rights lawyer has shaped his worldview in a way that has caused a deep understanding of the issues he will face in the White House. The experience also demonstrates a lifelong commitment to progressive advocacy absent in many of the other candidates. Since most of you have likely read or heard about Obama as a community organizer, I'll just quote a brief explanation of one of the many lessons he took away (this comes from a long article in the New Republic profiling his days as an organizer):

Obama was a fan of Alinsky's realistic streak. "The key to creating successful organizations was making sure people's self-interest was met," he told me, "and not just basing it on pie-in-the-sky idealism. So there were some basic principles that remained powerful then, and in fact I still believe in."

Chicago pastors still remember Obama making the rounds of local churches and conducting interviews--in organizing lingo, "one-on-ones"--where he would probe for self-interest. The Reverend Alvin Love, the Baptist minister of a modest brick church amid the clapboard bungalows of the South Side, was one of Obama's first one-on-ones. During a recent visit to his church, Love told me, "I remember he said this to me: There ought to be some way for us to help you meet your self-interest while at the same time meeting the real interests and the needs of the community.'"

Such an observation may seem obvious or unimportant in distinguishing a candidate (and perhaps some of the more perceptive Clinton supporters would be able to point out she herself wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley on Alinsky), but the organizer in Obama shows up in both his political philosophy and his policy proposals.

Logically, the policy that strikes the strongest chord with his days as an organizer is his plan to end urban poverty. Obama recognizes and addresses the myriad complexities of the issue in very practical terms. I first wrote about the plan in a diary the day after it was introduced. While I've been quite impressed with the persistence of John Edwards on this particular issue, I think that Obama's greater experience in this area becomes clear when the plans are compared. The Edwards plan focuses on removing the poor from inner city neighborhoods and dispersing them into "better" areas. This cuts off the social lifelines developed over the years in such communities, and also often leads to problems accessing services designed for the poor, as relevant organizations become much harder to reach. Such an approach has proven ineffective in the past:

...Edwards proposes doing away with public housing projects and replacing them with 1 million rental vouchers, to disperse the poor into better neighborhoods and suburbs, closer to good schools and jobs.

The idea sounds bold, but it faces a deflating reality: A major federal experiment conducted for more than a decade has found that dispersing poor families with vouchers does not improve earnings or school performance, leaving some economists puzzled that Edwards would make such dispersal a centerpiece of his anti-poverty program. Edwards said he was unaware of the experiment.

By contrast, Obama's plan largely focuses on developing neglected communities from within. In his speech introducing his plan, he once again highlights his knowledge of the intricacies of the issue by comparing a poor neighborhood as it is now with one that would be transformed by the services made available in his new program:

What's most overwhelming about urban poverty is that it's so difficult to escape - it's isolating and it's everywhere. If you are an African-American child unlucky enough to be born into one of these neighborhoods, you are most likely to start life hungry or malnourished. You are less likely to start with a father in your household, and if he is there, there's a fifty-fifty chance that he never finished high school and the same chance he doesn't have a job. Your school isn't likely to have the right books or the best teachers. You're more likely to encounter gang-activities than after-school activities. And if you can't find a job because the most successful businessman in your neighborhood is a drug dealer, you're more likely to join that gang yourself. Opportunity is scarce, role models are few, and there is little contact with the normalcy of life outside those streets.

What you learn when you spend your time in these neighborhoods trying to solve these problems is that there are no easy solutions and no perfect arguments. And you come to understand that for the last four decades, both ends of the political spectrum have been talking past one another.

If you're a child who's born in the Harlem Children's Zone, you start life differently than other inner-city children. Your parents probably went to what they call " Baby College", a place where they received counseling on how to care for newborns and what to expect in those first months. You start school right away, because there's early childhood education. When your parents are at work, you have a safe place to play and learn, because there's child care, and after school programs, even in the summer. There are innovative charter schools to attend. There's free medical services that offer care when you're sick and preventive services to stay healthy. There's affordable, good food available so you're not malnourished. There are job counselors and financial counselors. There's technology training and crime prevention.

You don't just sign up for this program, you're actively recruited for it, because the idea is that if everyone is involved, and no one slips through the cracks, then you really can change an entire community. Geoffrey Canada, the program's inspirational, innovative founder, put it best - instead of helping some kids beat the odds, the Harlem Children's Zone is actually changing the odds altogether.

Perhaps most importantly, Obama has deep ties to the issue. During his 2004 Senate campaign, while addressing the same organization he had worked with when first arriving in Chicago, he remarked:

"I grew up to be a man, right here, in this area. It's as a consequence of working with this organization and this community that I found my calling. There was something more than making money and getting a fancy degree. The measure of my life would be public service."

While I chose to focus on poverty to emphasize how I think Obama's experiences have prepared him for the Presidency, one could just as easily see how the lessons he took from his family and years spent abroad helped him to avoid making the same mistake so many of our other candidates made in authorizing/co-sponsoring the Iraq War:

In so many situations, Obama takes the time to think through a difficult question and deliver an honest (and typically impressive) answer, rather than delivering a pre-packaged talking point as Clinton and Edwards often do (though if I have to be fed talking points, I do like the rather bold ones that have emerged from the Edwards campaign in comparison to the poll-tested garble that often emerges from Clinton). Obama has shown an unparalleled (in the Presidential field) lifelong commitment to fighting on behalf of progressive causes, and has demonstrated an ability to draw on those life experiences in explaining and defining his policy. This ability is very much related to the second major reason why I support Obama: the ability to build off of his Administration a new national progressive consensus, including a dominant and "durable" Democratic Congress and electoral college for years to come.

A Dominant Progressive Majority

Since psericks largely covered this point in his post earlier today, I'll spend less time here. Without going into great detail, I will simply point out that Obama is quite popular among independents, and holds larger national leads in general election matchups over Republican opponents than Clinton or Edwards. But perhaps the most compelling case to be made for Obama comes from the enthusiasm with which his candidacy has been embraced by America's young voters. By one (albeit imperfect) indicator of youth "activism"--Facebook--Obama overwhelmingly leads all of his closest rivals...combined:

# of Facebook Supporters as of the time I'm Writing This:

Barack Obama: 129,896
Hillary Clinton: 36,044
Ron Paul: 19,466
John Edwards: 15,523
Mitt Romney: 15,282
Fred Thompson: 9,983
John McCain: 8,433
Dennis Kucinich: 7,457
*Rudy Giuliani apparently doesn't believe in Facebook

Obama's campaign has been quite effective in organizing on college campuses, folding into the campaign a group that had grown organically throughout the country earlier in the year. And if there is one group in the country that has overwhelmingly rejected Bush, it is young people. Young voters broke Democratic in the 2006 elections by a margin of 22 percentage points that would be absurd if it wasn't so...completely un-absurd, given who we were competing against. The internet generation is ours for the taking, and there is clearly no better candidate to turn this generation into the one that ushers in the next great era of progressive dominance than Barack Obama.

Think about it: the George W. Bush Administration will be the first lasting political memory in the collective consciousness of the millions of young adults of my generation.

What if the answer to the unprecedented corruption and lawlessness wrought on our country by the Bush Administration is the most sweeping and progressive government reform package offered in our history?

What if the reckless foreign policies of the neoconservative establishment and its enablers (including many figures running for the nomination of each Party today) were replaced by someone with the foresight to have opposed the Iraq War from the beginning because he thoroughly understood its disastrous implications?

What if the Republican ideology of "can't do, won't do, won't even try" was replaced by the progressive ideology of "I am my brother's keeper"?

What if we had a spokesperson who could explain our vision as eloquently as he did that summer evening in Boston every day for the next 4 years?

It's time to elect the one person who can make that happen.

The Politico has an article up today analyzing political contributions from academic institutions and the education community, a constituency whose political behavior is often taken for granted and therefore typically does not draw much analysis from the mainstream media. The article is based on a study conducted by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics and available on the Open Secrets website.

This appears to be yet another unique area from which Obama draws strength, and The Politico even took the time to come up with a clever title to reflect that:

Professors have a crush on Obama

Barack Obama appears to be winning the faculty lounge straw poll -- his presidential campaign is cultivating academics and pacing the field in collecting cash from them.

Obama, whose website features an "Academics for Obama" page, raised nearly $1.5 million in the first half of the year from people who work for colleges and universities, according to an analysis of campaign finance data by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. And that's 55 percent more than the $939,000 brought in by the next biggest professor's pet, fellow Democratic senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Obama's nearly $1.5 million figure represents just over 21% of the $7 million total given to all Presidential campaigns from both parties so far this cycle. The education community is an important constituency, especially in Democratic Party politics. Via Open Secrets:

Virtually all the money in this category comes from individuals, as school districts, colleges and universities rarely form PACs. This doesn't mean they're not players in Washington, however. Education interests ranked No. 3 on the list of top industries to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry during the 2004 cycle, with $8.4 million.

As mentioned in the excerpt above, Hillary Clinton comes in second with $938,700 in donations from education, performing disproportionately bad against Obama among teachers and professors in comparison to total fundraising. The same is true of the $247,411 total that Edwards collected from the "industry." The top Republicans in terms of donations from the academic and educational world were Mitt Romney at $448,030 and Rudy Giuliani at $366,350 (not surprisingly, Democrats do much better among academics and educators than Republicans).

There are a few different explanations for Obama's dominance among scholars. It is generally commented that he comes off as the most cerebral of the candidates on the campaign trail, and not just because he wasn't dumb enough to champion the Iraq war. The way he answers questions--often in great detail and with honest, intellectual justification--has drawn both criticism and praise, because while he can seem both smart and genuine, he can also be long-winded and needlessly indirect. He may simply be viewed as the smartest of the candidates, having been President of the Harvard Law Review and a Constitutional Law lecturer at one of the nation's most prestigious academic institutions. Another possible explanation is that teachers and professors feel a certain kinship with "one of their own," a variation on "identity politics" stemming from Obama's tenure at the University of Chicago from 1993-2004. Also, there is a possibility that the excitement among professors and teachers is partially influenced by the great excitement among the students they teach. Finally, it is certainly possible (and perhaps likely) that professors are supporting Obama for a more implicit reason, or for a combination of many of the explanations offered above and others left unmentioned. Larry Sabato takes a stab at guessing why he is popular at universities:

he seems to have "a special appeal among academics, particularly those at four-year institutions," said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato.

"Even at places like UVA, which are more conservative than most, it's overwhelmingly Obama," said Sabato, asserting academics see Obama's candidacy as one of change and a test of the nation's tolerance. "You have some feminists who are supporting Hillary Clinton, but that is really the only demographic supporting her, which is quite surprising."

Whatever the case, it seems Obama is emerging as the candidate of the academics. It would be interesting to see how support divides among university faculty and pre-K-12 teachers.

Finally, here's the total figures for contributions from the education industry to each campaign. Note the large gaps between Obama and Clinton and Clinton and Romney.

Barack Obama: $1,459,027
Hillary Clinton: $938,700
Mitt Romney: $448,030
Rudy Giuliani: $366,350
John Edwards: $247,411
Bill Richardson: $214,260
John McCain: $158,590
Chris Dodd: $127,016
Joe Biden: $75,500
Sam Brownback: $23,097
Ron Paul: $20,755
Tom Vilsack: $20,350
Mike Huckabee: $16,700
Dennis Kucinich: $13,600
Tom Tancredo: $6,525
Duncan Hunter: $4,450
Jim Gilmore: $2,300
Mike Gravel: $400
Available  at Opensecrets

It's already being talked about at Daily Kos, but I haven't seen anything here. Via Political Wire:

"The South Carolina Republicans won't dictate what Iowa does... The Iowa Caucuses are scheduled for January 14th, 2008 and we are moving forward with plans for that date. Iowa will hold the first in the nation caucuses."

If this holds true, the new Democratic primary calendar may look something like this:

January 12th: New Hampshire
January 14th: Iowa
January 19th: Nevada
January 29th: South Carolina and Florida
February 5th: Super Tuesday

Hard to say exactly how this would affect things, but it's reasonable to assume that the last-minute undecided voters (and weak leaners) in Iowa would be influenced by the media coverage of the New Hampshire primary, similar to what's happened in reverse order in recent years.

Though on MyDD it seems to have been lost in the debate over whether he uses the "D" word enough in his emails, yesterday Senator Obama gave a speech in Washington, D.C., in which he outlined a $6 billion agenda to fight the problem of urban poverty in America. The plan is quite bold and comprehensive, and as is often the case with detailed policy proposals, has been difficult for reporters to digest and analyze beyond dollar figures and catch phrases. However, it offers a new perspective on tackling urban poverty in America, and is very much consistent with the Family-based Progressivism attributed to Obama and Policy Director Karen Kornbluh. Since nobody's actually taken it on in a diary or post, I thought I'd take a stab at breaking down the specific proposals offered within the speech, and the rhetoric used to introduce and support those proposals.

If you don't have time to read the extended entry, here are the highlights from the plan:

1. A massive initiative in the 20 largest cities in America to implement programs aimed at children. Such a program would be modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone:

If you're a child who's born in the Harlem Children's Zone, you start life differently than other inner-city children. Your parents probably went to what they call " Baby College", a place where they received counseling on how to care for newborns and what to expect in those first months. You start school right away, because there's early childhood education. When your parents are at work, you have a safe place to play and learn, because there's child care, and after school programs, even in the summer. There are innovative charter schools to attend. There's free medical services that offer care when you're sick and preventive services to stay healthy. There's affordable, good food available so you're not malnourished. There are job counselors and financial counselors. There's technology training and crime prevention.

2. Expand assistance programs to low-income parents

I'll pass the plan I outlined last year that will provide more financial support to fathers who make the responsible choice to help raise their children and crack down on the fathers who don't. And we'll help new mothers with their new responsibilities by expanding a pioneering program known as the Nurse-Family Partnership that offers home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income mothers and mothers-to-be.

This program has been proven to reduce childhood injuries, unintended pregnancies, and the use of welfare and food stamps. It's increased father involvement, women's employment, and children's school readiness. It's produced more than $28,000 in net savings for every high-risk family enrolled in the program. It works, and I'll expand the program to 570,000 first-time mothers each year.

3. Help people find work, and make work pay

I will invest $1 billion over five years in innovative transitional jobs programs that have been highly successful at placing the unemployed into temporary jobs and then training them for permanent ones.

To make work pay, I will also triple the Earned Income Tax Credit for full-time workers making the minimum wage. This is one of the most successful anti-poverty programs in history and lifts nearly 5 million Americans out of poverty every year. I was able to expand this program when I was a state Senator in Illinois, and as President I'll do it again.

4. Bring businesses back to the inner cities

A long time ago, this country created a World Bank that has helped spur economic development in some of the world's poorest regions. I think it's about time we had something like that right here in America. Less than one percent of the $250 billion in venture capital that's invested each year goes to minority businesses that are trying to breathe life into our cities. This has to change.
When I'm President, I'll make sure that every community has the access to the capital and resources it needs to create a stronger business climate by providing more loans to small businesses and setting up the financial institutions that can help get them started. I'll also create a national network of business incubators, which are local services that help first-time business owners design their business plans, find the best location, and receive expert advice on how to run their businesses whenever they need it. And I will take steps to help close the digital divide and increase internet access for cities so that urban America is just as connected as the rest of America.

5. Give more Americans access to safe, affordable housing

As President, I'll create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that would add as many as 112,000 new affordable units in mixed income neighborhoods. We'll also do more to protect homeowners from mortgage fraud and subprime lending by passing my plan to provide counseling to tenants, homeowners, and other consumers so they get the advice and guidance they need before buying a house and support if they get in to trouble down the road. And we will crack down on mortgage professionals found guilty of fraud by increasing enforcement and creating new criminal penalties.

6. Appoint a new Director of Urban Policy to oversee and report directly on the progress of such efforts

I'm writing this diary in response to the common criticism in the netroots, leveled today by Todd Beeton and Big Tent Democrat, that Barack Obama is attempting to triangulate in a manner similar to Bill Clinton during his Presidential campaigns and Administration.

Todd somewhat disingenuously compares an Edwards response to a question about the Democratic Party with today's Obama speech about urban poverty, and cites it as evidence that Obama doesn't stand up for the Democratic Party/our issues. Wouldn't it have been better to actually compare Obama's speech with the corresponding Edwards speech given about rural poverty? Well I did, and guess what I found? I found two great speeches on poverty by two great champions of the Democratic Party, delivered without a single mention of the word "Democrat."