Great moments from the campaign trail

Micah Sifry looks at Obama's problems with the jewish vote and found this video from Boca Raton, Florida.



He says:

I learned two things from watching this. One, that Obama seems to have won over his audience pretty effectively, judging from the loud applause and standing ovation he gets at the end. Two, he has a very funny way of disarming people who have been getting those viral emails claiming that he is a Muslim. At about the 6:00 mark in the video, he asks them "If you get an email from a Nigerian who says you can make a lot of money is you send him a $1000, don't send your money." The crowd starts to laugh knowingly. They roar as he continues, "We don't believe stuff when there are advertisements that say we can enhance your ... then why would you believe an email that says stuff about me?

On this other video, which was taped by someone who recorded part of the live TV coverage of Obama's appearance, it's interesting to see that the audience actually applauds appreciatively when he explains that his name, Barack, actually comes from the same root and has the same meaning of the Hebrew name, "Baruch," which means blessed. Corny, but effective, perhaps.

This is pretty neat too, Obama dancing in the streets in Peurto Rico

But the highlight thus far was watching the Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting today in Washington DC to determine the fate of the contested Florida and Michigan delegates. Sounds terribly boring but it was actually all about the highest drama.

I could watch it live as it was streamed and the stream was offered to anyone as embeddable by the DNC. Great stuff and very practical politics as on the DNC site the stream was only getting 1700 viewers but this was magnified by also being available on many other very popular blogs and websites - real edemocracy in action.