We have to win.

As a small note at the top of the page alludes to, Brooklyn for Barack is in the process of organizing a major voter registration drive, the details of which will be rolled out in the coming days. But now that we’ve had a few days to savor Obama’s victory, I wanted to say a sentence or two about the importance of voter registration in Brooklyn. New York will be a safe Democratic state in the general election in November, but Obama will need a strong coalition of engaged supporters to govern effectively. Now is the time to bring people into the system and build that coalition.

Via Kid Oakland and Al Giordano, from whom the title of this post was shamelessly stolen.

Everyone in Brooklyn should know that, because Brooklyn is the perfect example of why that is so. Let’s leave aside the argument about following the rules for a moment — yes, the rules are the rules, they’re the rules for everyone, and everyone knew about them in advance — but let’s put that aside for now.

Brooklyn is, by population, one of the strongest Democratic counties in the entire country. Only a handful of counties (Cook Co., Illinois (Chicago), Wayne Co, MI (Detroit), Los Angeles Co., CA, and Middlesex Co., MA (Boston north to NH)) delivered more Democratic votes to Al Gore in 2000 than Brooklyn. By all rights we are the Democratic party. But we don’t normally get a lot of interest and attention in national elections, and that’s because the popular vote doesn’t count. There’s simply no incentive to run up the score in Brooklyn to boost popular vote totals in heavily-Democratic New York.

The primary is similar. If the primary election had been a matter of turning out the highest number of registered Democrats possible, Brooklyn, and other major urban areas, would have been ground zero of the campaign. Instead, neither candidate sent paid staffers to Brooklyn. I’m incredibly proud of what we did as volunteers, but I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets by saying more resources would have been helpful. Those resources went to places like Idaho instead, and that’s why Obama will win the nomination. Does anyone believe that Senator Obama wouldn’t have spent more time in Brooklyn and less time in Idaho if this were a popular vote contest?

By the way, if you include an estimate of the popular vote in the caucus states (which Team Clinton does not) we’re actually winning the popular vote.

But still.

UPDATE:And now, thanks to Nate Silver over at 538, you can calculate the popular vote choose-your-own adventure style from a menu of 7 different choices that create 972 different popular vote options.

As we transition into general election mode, Brooklyn for Barack is trying to be better at providing information to Obama supporters in the borough, both about our activities as an organization and about the election. To that end, we’ve added a delegate count widget from the DemConWatch blog to the top of the page. It provides a nice at-a-glance overview of the primary race. It seems pretty self-explanatory to me, but if not feel free to leave questions in the comments. (Speaking of which, we’re going to experiment with opening up comments.) On to the primary.

Florida
The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee met yesterday to determine the status of the Florida and Michigan delegations. (For those who haven’t been playing along at home, Florida and Michigan jumped their turn in the primary calender and were penalized by losing 100% of their delegates. Yesterday’s meeting was to discuss reinstatement of all or some portion of their delegates) The committee voted to use the results of the Florida primary (for which neither candidate campaigned) to seat the Florida delegation, including superdelegates, with half a vote each. Obama gained 36 delegates from Florida; Clinton gained 56.5. Although there were many on Team Clinton who felt that the Florida delegation should have been seated at full strength, the motion to seat the delegation at half strength passed unanimously. Here’s Clinton supporter Alice Huffman making an extremely graceful plea on behalf of the compromise over the heckling of some Clinton supporters: (Via)

“Madame chair, obviously this is not the motion that I would have liked. But I also know that we cannot leave here and not do something for relief for Florida. I know that for many people who don’t really understand how important rules are for rulemakers, that this is really a big step on behalf of this committee to move to give the relief that you think you can do within the purview of our prerogative. So I would ask my friends out there that just saw us go through the first vote, that the world’s not perfect, but it’s good. And when you can come here and you can leave with unity, that’s what this party needs is unity.”

…

“Do not interrupt me, and please don’t do what people expect us to do. And let me just tell you this. When we get this vote, we will leave here more united than we came. This is not about each other’s campaigns. This is about finding a way to make whole, to some degree.

…

Can I tell you something? That vote failed. Do you believe in democracy? Then if you do, then here is the next best thing. And I want to ask all of you to respect it and to please conduct yourselves like proper men and women who understand that we must compromise, that the world is not perfect, and I’m going to ask for an ‘aye’ vote.”

Michigan
Michigan was a sticking point. Obama (and John Edwards) removed their names from the Michigan ballot but Clinton did not. So people could only vote for Clinton or vote “uncommitted,” leaving the results of that primary suspect at best. Using a variety of less-than-transparent metrics, the Michigan Democratic Party put forth a plan (which eventually prevailed) to seat the delegates 69 for Clinton to 59 for Obama at half a vote each. Superdelegates also received half a vote each. Chuck Todd from MSNBC is reporting that the Obama campaign had the votes to force a 50-50 split of the delegates, but chose not to in hopes of preserving/creating party unity:

Per multiple sources inside the closed Rules and Bylaws Committee lunch, Obama actually had the votes to get a 50-50 delegate split out of Michigan — but by just a vote or two.

However, it was decided to go with the 69-59 split to win a larger majority. That measure passed 19-8.

So, 69-59 at half a vote works out to 32 delegates for Obama and 38 delegates for Clinton (including supers). All in all, Clinton picked up 25 delegates on Obama yesterday and bumped the magic number from 2025 to 2117, leaving Obama needing 64 delegates to clinch the nomination.

Puerto Rico
So we got our butts kicked in Puerto Rico. As of 10:00PM, Clinton is winning 68-32. CNN estimates that she will gain 38 delegates and Obama will gain 17 delegates. Combined with Michigan and Florida, that’s a net Clinton gain of 46 delegates for the weekend, and by my math leaves Obama 46 delegates away from clinching the nomination, 156 delegates ahead of Hillary Clinton. Montana and South Dakota (31 delegates between them) are on Tuesday, so stay tuned for that.

Also, be aware that the Clinton campaign will try to use the results in Puerto Rico to argue that they are winning the popular vote. I’ll address that in a separate post.

Volunteers are needed to campaign for Barack. No prior campaign experience is necessary. Please consider joining us!

PRIMARY DAY!!!! April 22 at 7 a.m.

Your Vessel of Hope is called: “Today’s Bus”

Departing New York at 88 East Broadway, Manhattan at 7 AM SHARP
Arriving Philadephia at 121 N 11th Street

Returning to NYC in the evening.

$12 one way and $20 round trip

You can prepurchase tickets here or purchase tickets on the spot.

To RSVP, email jesposito@newyorkobama.com.

If you are interested in staying overnight, lodging is available at very low rates. For more information, email jesposito@newyorkobama.com.