NASHVILLE - Obama campaign manager, David Plouffe, sent an email to supporters, urging them to watch tonight’s debate, and dishing on the campaign’s strategy in a video message.

Taped yesterday in Asheville, North Carolina, Plouffe noted they had an “excellent chance” of winning the Tar Heel State and that there was “a lot of good news” to discuss.

Plouffe believes Obama has solidified support in many of the states John Kerry won in ‘04, and since McCain “remarkably” pulled out of Michigan, he said the GOP is targeting only four states: Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

“We feel very strong about our chances in all four of those states,” Plouffe said, saying they would continue “to fight as hard as we can” there. Meanwhile on offense, Obama is “gaining strength” in North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, and Ohio, he said.

Plouffe couldn’t resist talking about his campaign’s documentary on McCain’s ties to Charles Keating of the late ’80s savings and loan crisis in the four and a half minute video, before urging supporters to donate their money and time. “We’re gonna ask you to continue to really do inhuman amounts of work for us, because the future of our country is at stake,” he urged them, adding the campaign would “help facilitate” their travel to one of the battleground states.

Watch it here:

OXFORD, MS - Following tonight’s first debate of the general election season, staffers, surrogates, and advisors from both campaigns were on hand to talk to members of the media to talk up their candidates’ performance.

It’s commonly referred to as “spin alley” because no matter who you talk to - their side won.

Take, for instance, Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe, who declared victory minutes after the debate’s conclusion.

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Although it’s difficult to cut through all the triumphant chatter, it’s probably fair to say that neither side has to admit defeat. John McCain effectively pushed his experience and his appeal as a low-risk factor, but then Obama held his own against the 26-year Washington veteran who’s known for his depth of knowledge in foreign policy.

To mix sports metaphors - Obama did not fumble, a low bar to be sure, but McCain failed to hit it out of the park.

In a strongly worded email to supporters, Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe said last night’s Republican convention displayed “McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians” that lied, attacked, mocked, and insulted its way through a series of prime time speeches. Read the email - sent early this morning - below.

Friend –

I wasn’t planning on sending you something tonight. But if you saw
what I saw from the Republican convention, you know that it demands a
response.

I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians.
They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for
being a part of this campaign.

But worst of all — and this deserves to be noted — they insulted
the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our
political process.

You know that despite what John McCain and his attack squad say,
everyday people have the power to build something extraordinary when
we come together. Make a donation of $5 or more right now to remind
them.

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s
experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more
than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs
and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch
politicians and their failed policies.

And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions
of people have found that by coming together in their local
communities they can change the course of history. That promise is
what our campaign has been about from the beginning.

(more…)

The DNC today announced that Barack Obama would accept his party’s nomination at Mile High Stadium - a venue that can accommodate more than 75,000. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe followed up with an email to supporters inviting them to attend the historic convention.

Mr. Obama told reporters today that he was excited for the convention. “I obviously had the great honor of participating in the last convention in Boston and it was terrific, but one of the things I’ve said in the past is that sometimes our conventions don’t feel like they are open to everybody and for us to be able to do it in Invesco Field is an opportunity for 80,000 who might not otherwise have been able to participate to get involved and its consistent with how we want to make sure that people from all walks of life ordinary Americans are able to participate in this convention and I think it will be terrific.”

Read Plouffe’s email here:

Friend –

I wanted you to be the first to hear the news.

At the Democratic National Convention next month, we’re going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we’ve opened it up throughout this campaign.

Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his.

On Thursday, August 28th, he’s scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination in a speech at the convention hall in front of the assembled delegates.

Instead, Barack will leave the convention hall and join more than 75,000 people for a huge, free, open-air event where he will deliver his acceptance speech to the American people.

It’s going to be an amazing event, and Barack would like you to join him. Free tickets will become available as the date approaches, but we’ve reserved a special place for a few of the people who brought us this far and who continue to drive this campaign.

If you make a donation of $5 or more between now and midnight on July 31st, you could be one of 10 supporters chosen to fly to Denver and spend two days and nights at the convention, meet Barack backstage, and watch his acceptance speech in person. Each of the ten supporters who are selected will be able to bring one guest to join them.

Make a donation now and you could have a front row seat to history.

We’ll follow up with more details on this and other convention activities as we get closer, but please take a moment and pass this note to someone you know who might like to be there.

It will be an event you’ll never forget.

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe

The Obama campaign released the Obamas’ 2007 federal tax returns on its website today, showing the couple made nearly $4 million from Barack Obama’s books, “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams From My Father.” This is a big jump in income for the couple, who pulled in close to one million dollars in 2006.

Today on a conference call, Campaign Manager David Plouffe was asked by a reporter if the campaign would release Senator Obama’s tax returns from 1997-99 as the Clinton camp has requested. Plouffe replied by saying his candidate had released taxes from the entire decade, presumably referring to 2000s, but did not say whether or not they would release returns from the previous decade.

“We think on issues of transparency and disclosure, which is important in making sure people have faith in their government again, Senator Obama has released all of his earmarks, something Senator Clinton has not done,” Plouffe said.

Obama’s tax returns at a glance:

Total income: $4,238,165

Adjusted gross income: $4,139,965

Salaried income: $260,735

Net profit from books: $3,943,378

Federal taxes paid: $1,396,772

Total charitable contributions for 2007: $240,370

The Obama camp says it netted more pledged delegates by winning yesterday’s Mississippi primary than Hillary Clinton got by winning the big contests in Texas and Ohio. The Obama campaign has downplayed Clinton’s wins in these so-called “big states” - stressing the path to the nomination comes down to simple math.

Obama has done well by handily winning in states like Georgia and Mississippi - and by remaining competitive in the big states that Clinton has won.  It’s a blueprint that has Obama up in the pledged delegate count - 1411 to Clinton’s 1250 (according to the Obama campaign).

But with 10 contests left and 566 pledged delegates to be awarded, no candidate can reach the 2,025 needed to secure the nomination, which would throw the nomination to the superdelegates.

Of course, Florida and Michigan’s contests have not been resolved by the DNC and their combined 313 pledged delegates are yet to be awarded. The Obama campaign has said it will not accept the results based on the January contest results, as Obama’s name was not on the ballot in Michigan, and he did not campaign in the Sunshine State.

Today Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said caucuses were an option as were new primaries, but cautioned the latter method would be expensive. He has “deep concerns” with a mail-in revote, saying “To try to put to something that took the state of Oregon 10 years to get comfortable with at the statewide level is problematic.”

So what’s the best option? “It seems that the easiest solution here would be some kind of fair seating of the delegations that is not reflective of this contest in January, that allows these states to participate in Denver, but does not advantage Sen Clinton unfairly,” Plouffe said. It’s unclear how this seating would be decided.

Just to be sure voters in Michigan and Florida don’t equate Clinton’s concern for the states’ delegates with making sure their voices are heard in this nomination process, Plouffe noted, “We do not think the Clinton campaign’s approach here is based on benevolence towards Florida and Michigan - it’s based on increasingly desperate, self serving stretching for whatever they think might help them secure the nomination.”

Pennsylvania is widely considered the next (and third) “Super Tuesday” coming up on April 22nd, but the Obama campaign today said Clinton will likely win the state. “They should win by a healthy margin, given where they start,” Plouffe said. “We will campaign hard there, we will try to get as many votes and delegates as we can, but our campaign will not be defined by Pennsylvania. We will be campaigning in all the rest of the states.”

Obama will campaign this weekend in Indiana, and will focus time and energy in North Carolina as well the other upcoming states, while the Clinton campaign focuses on Pennsylvania. Should the nomination come down to supedelegates, the Obama campaign will argue he is the candidate with more pledged delegates, more states, and more of the nation’s popular vote.

In a pen and pad briefing at a Chicago hotel, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe talked to assembled reporters to discuss the state of the race.

Acknowledging Clinton’s victories, he said she “had a good night last night in terms of the raw vote and, you know, obviously breathed some life into her campaign, but the fact remains that if you look at the entire contests so far, which is just about 40 states, almost 80% of the states have participated right now, Barack Obama has shown real breadth of support.”

To win the nomination, the Obama campaign is not relying on “symbolic wins.” Rather it’s about amassing delegates. And in that playbook, Plouffe said Hillary Clinton is not gaining ground. “If you look at the day on total, she’s gonna net anywhere from four to probably ten delegates,” he said, noting that number is smaller than what they netted when they won Idaho.

“Last night was a big window that closed for them because they probably needed to net more like 75 or 80 delegates to be in a position to suggest that somehow they could retake the pledged delegate lead,” he told reporters. “So even the most generous analysis of how these races might go coming down the pike, they’re never going to even get close to erasing the pledged delegate lead. The fairest look at it probably means we’re going to maintain a pledged delegate lead of over 100 by the end of this,” he continued.

Plouffe stressed they are looking at this as a 50 state race while the Clinton camp is picking and choosing states, ones the Clinton camp refers to as the “big states.” Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is already downplaying Pennsylvania, where Clinton likely has the advantage. “The winner of Pennsylvania is likely to only net, you know, well could net just a couple or four if it’s very close, but nine to ten delegates at most.”

They will campaign hard in Pennsylvania, but they will also organize in states like North Carolina, Indiana, and South Dakota. “They’re not going to win the rest of the contests,” he noted, saying they are preparing for a “long haul” campaign against a fierce candidate, whom Plouffe referred to as “the most secretive politician in America today” for her lack of disclosure.

He also described her campaign strategy as one that “is simply going to be to try to run a scorched earth campaign and somehow, someway convince the superdelegates, the party insiders and leaders, that they should overturn the voters’ decision, which would be catastrophic for the party, though, in terms of heading into the general election.”

Plouffe urged reporters in the room to press the Clinton campaign on this issue. “The question for them is, is there a pledged delegate deficit that you think is low enough that the superdelegates will be comfortable overturning essentially the will of the voters. And that’s really the question for them as we stand here today,” he observed.

In terms of money, Plouffe was coy. “We’ll have our numbers out soon. Candidly, we’re in the middle of these big contests and we had a lot of money to process and wanted to make sure we had the most accurate count of donors and average contributions. We’ve had a very good last 24 hours,” he said. “Just like after New Hampshire, when the media says, ‘well, it was a good night for Clinton,’ our people respond well.”

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign issued a fiery statement today about the photo allegedly circulated by the Clinton camp of Barack Obama dressed in as a traditional Somali Elder on a 2006 trip to Africa. Campaign manager called the act “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.” Plouffe continued, “This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world.”

Later on a conference call, Obama surrogate General Scott Gration explained that he too was along for the trip. “We try on Christmas gifts, sometimes that we may not want to keep, but we try them on as being a grateful recipient. Sen. Obama did what any leader should do: accepted the gift, accepted the hospitality, accept that token of friendship and he did it in a way that showed respect and helped build the bridges that he does so well. He’s a unifier in all atmospheres and certainly that day he was somebody who accepted a gift of friendship in a way that we would expect our president to do.”

Foreign Policy advisor Susan Rice noted the irony that the Clinton camp would push the photo on the day when Senator Clinton is set to talk about the importance of restoring America’s reputation in the world. The photo, Rice said, is “I think it’s a very unfortunate message to send, not one that in my experience the President or Mrs. Clinton themselves have embraced. I’ve traveled with each of them to Africa and I’ve seen them, as President Clinton did, dress himself in kinte cloth in Ghana or in traditional costume in Senegal. And there they showed the kind of outreach and respect that General Gration was just describing and which ought to be the hallmark of our engagement with the rest of the world.”

Obama Campaign Manager, David Plouffe estimates his candidate has a 136 pledged delegate lead after yesterday’s Potomac Primary wins. The Obama campaign has now won 21 contests (including 12 primaries) and, according to the campaign, has a 700,000 vote lead in terms of popular votes cast. “We couldn’t be in a stronger position right now, and the last really five days, we believe, will be looked at back at as a very decisive period in the nomination contest,” he declared. “We think it really put us on the path to the nomination.”

On a conference call with reporters, Plouffe said his candidate has the advantage. “We believe it’s next to impossible for Senator Clinton to close that pledged delegate count. The only way she could do it is winning most of the rest of the contests by 25 - 30 points. And we see not a single contest on the calendar left where we’d expect her to win by those kind of margins.” He later explained that they expect to benefit from a more relaxed primary schedule because “we believe anytime Senator Obama is able to spend time with voters in states, we have profited from that.”

The only way Senator Clinton could overcome this gap, Plouffe said, is if she wins both Texas and Ohio by “blowout” proportions - meaning a 20 point margin or greater as to win a large proportion of the delegates at stake. But Team Obama doesn’t expect that to happen - in fact, they plan on amassing more delegates themselves in both states. “At this point, even the most creative math, really does not get her ever back even in terms of pledged delegates,” Plouffe said, saying it would be “highly unlikely” that their pledged delegate lead will be eroded.

So does this mean victory or will superdelegates decide the Party’s nominee? “We believed all along that the pledged delegate leader will be the Democratic nominee of the party,” Plouffe stated. “I think there’s a growing chorus of concern out there that people do not think that superdelegates should overturn the result of the contests, so we have closed the gap with superdelegates, we’re continuing to try and attract support and we’ll continue to do that. But I think at the end of the day, if we head into June and we’ve won more states, more importantly we have a pledged delegate lead, you know at the end of the day, I think it’s much more likely than not that the superdelegates ratify that outcome,” Plouffe said.

As he walked away from the ballot box at a Chicago elementary school this afternoon, Barack Obama joked to reporters, “It was close, but in the end I went for Obama.” The senator and his wife Michelle stayed at the polling place in the Hyde Park neighborhood for nearly a half an hour after voting, where they greeted students and teachers, poll workers, and other voters as a gaggle or reporters looked on, trying to get his attention.

When he ambled over to the waiting journalists who had set up microphones, he stressed he had time to take just two questions. The senator had a slew of satellite television and radio interviews to do this afternoon - and he squeezed in a game of basketball at Chicago’s East Bank Club. The candidate has something of a tradition of playing games on  caucus and primary days with staff and Secret Service.

Obama was asked to anticipate today’s outcome, as Super Tuesday is traditionally the day that decides a party’s nominee for president. But probably not this year. “I think everybody is flying blind on this one,” he responded.

When the primaries were “one state at a time we could actually track and get a sense of how the election and turnout was going. Here we’ve got 22 states and noody can keep track of it. What we know, though, is that the last couple weeks we’ve seen tremendous excitement,” he explained.
He then added, “My guess is we’ll have a good night.”

Watch Obama vote here:

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Later at a “pen and pad” briefing in the press file adjacent to the site of Obama’s rally tonight, Campaign Manager David Plouffe said as long as it’s close in terms of pledged delegate support, it will be a successful night for Team Obama. They don’t expect to win more states or delegates than Senator Clinton, but look for it to be closer than thought just weeks ago. If they can get by without a severe loss, the Obama campaign would regain a sense of confidence because “we get to states in smaller bite sizes, two or three on a day, where we think we can actually get in there and campaign and have the focus be a little bit more intensive,” Plouffe explained.

But stay tuned. Plouffe stated that anything is possible on Super Tuesday. “Who knows what could happen tonight, there could be some surprises on their side too,” he said.