Best Of Obama Yet To Come

The momentum keeps building, as the endorsements come out one after the other in planned succession. Ted Kennedy and MoveOn.org in the last two days, and from many others in the past, including Oprah and Toni Morrison. Today he got the endorsement of the largest union in California, the S.E.I.U., and if Obama can secure a two-thirds support of members of the A.F.L-C.I.O., he can chalk that one up as well.

This all sounds good for now, as long as he's got enough up his sleeve to keep this alive over the weekend and into Tuesday's primaries. But the endorsement from MoveOn.org could hurt him in the general election if he's nominated. Talk radio regularly rails MoveOn.org for their left-wing action, but that's to be expected, and may be a testament to how effective it is. Having said that, though, talk radio does have a lot of influence, and may bring some of the Republican support Obama has been receiving back to their base. That is, of course, when the far-right ends it's temper tantrum over McCain's immigration policy and his success.

In addition, in 10 years this is the first time MoveOn.org has endorsed a presidential candidate, and it'll be interesting to see what their efforts will look like later in the race. Perhaps we'll see more ads in the New York Times. This time covering John McCain or Mitt Romney.

The biggest problem with MoveOn.org isn't their politics, or their supporters, or even George Soros. The problem is the (sadly) high percentage of people who are going to make their judgements about the site and it's implications with regard to Obama based on nothing more than whether they listen to Sean Hannity or Keith Olbermann, both of whom make a habit of letting their emotions or personal vendettas get in the way of saying something useful about these issues.

But for now, Obama will continue to rise until Super Tuesday, and hopefully very soon we'll have a nomination. Also, during the next few days, watch for Al Gore's endorsement of Obama to become public. If he thinks he'll have any influence because of it, he shouldn't wait much longer.