"With 3.2 million members nationwide and over 1.7 million members in states that vote next Tuesday, we'll be able to immediately jump into action in support of Senator Obama's candidacy. We've learned that the key to achieving change in Washington without compromising core values is having a galvanized electorate to back you up. And Barack Obama has our members 'fired up and ready to go' on that front."
- Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org's Executive Director
Also, the head of the United Healthcare Workers is urging the union's umbrella group, the SEIU state council, to support Barack Obama now that John Edwards has dropped out of the presidential race.
"We feel Obama is the best candidate for working families, and we will urge the Service Employees International Union's state council to officially endorse him at their meeting on Friday," United Healthcare Workers President Sal Rosselli said Thursday in a statement.
He said his union, which has 150,000 members in Southern and Northern California, "has a huge capacity to make a real difference in the California primary, given our extensive and experienced field operation, ability to phone bank, precinct walk and reach union members throughout the state."
SEIU has about 650,000 members in California. Many are city, county and state workers. Others are in-home support and health care workers.
And to top things off nicely, state Senator Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, officially endorsed U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday. Yee is a prominent Asian politician in California, where Asians make up 14% of the population.
It will be interesting to see what happens in California, as over half of all ballots are mail-in ballots.. but but a large percentage of voters are expected to mail them in at the last minute or drop them off at polling places. The question is, will the final vote reflect the shift in poll numbers towards Obama or not?
In other amusing news, Hillary Clinton picked up an endorsement from Ann Coulter, because, in her words, "Hillary is absolutely more conservative" than John McCain and because she doesn't believe that Hillary Clinton willl end the war in Iraq.
