Yesterday, when I was watching the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate I noticed that there was a significant number of Californian's questions that were selected to be asked of the candidates. Out of the 38 questions that were asked, eight came from Californians. No other state even came close to matching that total. Minnesota, Michigan, South Carolina and Pennsylvania had two each. The rest were single digits and two came from unknown locations.

Everyone in the country was eligible to submit a question. A state by state breakdown of the origin of all of the 2,000+ questioners is impossible to find, since we only know user names. However, during the debate they listed the hometown of almost all. So we can't know if this was a representative sample of the questions asked. Regardless, it is great to see so many Californians get a chance to ask the candidates questions during the debate. Wouldn't it be ironic if there were more CA questions asked during this debate than the one in LA?

Below the fold are the Californian questions and the name and hometown of the questioner.

MoveOn held their climate change townhall this weekend and numbers are starting to come out from both the straw poll and the attendees. It was the largest MoveOn event since 2004, with over 100,000 people at 1,300 house parties. There is immense interest from activist Democrats in what the presidential contenders have to say on climate change.

Obama got a lot of kudos for his bold moves on the environment over the weekend, and broke some new ground during the townhall, announcing a proposal for carbon auctions to fund alternative energy research.

Some activists pronounced themselves delighted with Obama’s words aired over the weekend.

The president of Clean Air Watch, Frank O’Donnell, said Obama’s support of carbon auctions “shows a terrifically enlightened attitude.” O’Donnell noted that a recent Congressional Budget Office study found that buying and selling emissions allowances would produce long-term economic benefits.

Interestingly, that did not translate into votes in the straw poll, where Edwards had the clear lead in both the overall vote and among those who attended the house parties. MoveOn allowed all of their members to participate in the straw poll, even though many of them may not have seen all of the candidate's remarks. Obama came in forth in both. Environmentalists' concerns with Obama's position on coal-to-liquid fuel may have effected the results. He has been moving away from that position, much in the way that Clinton has done on free trade. However, the shifting may not have solidified support for him in this particular crowd.

The results of the straw poll will go for more than just a few blog posts (even if they are on the NYT site). MoveOn will run print ads in newspapers in Iowa and New Hampshire next week, announcing the results. They used an email announcing the results to fundraise for the ads.

“The enormous response we got from our members on this issue emphasizes how important it will be for our next president to make solving the climate crisis a top priority in 2008,” said Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn.org Political Action.

“MoveOn members want leaders who will take on the oil and coal industry and create a clean energy economy. That’s probably why Sen. Edwards’ support of cap and auction systems – which force polluters to pay citizens—and his call for more green collar jobs received such strong backing,” added Ilyse Hogue, Campaign Director of MoveOn.org Political Action.

MoveOn will host a third and final townhall in the fall on affordable health care. The first was on Iraq.

The campaigns are in fundraising mode and the legislature is bogged down in budget negotiations, so it's time for random video afternoon.

How about a flashback to a time when candidates were having large rallies in California. Here is an official campaign video on Obama's huge 12,000 person rally in Oakland back in March.

It seems like this is the week to roll out new TV ads for the Democratic presidential contenders. Yesterday, Obama released his first two ads of the cycle, now here is John Edward's offering called "Strength of America". The ad is airing in New Hampshire and features a cameo by Elizabeth Edwards.

Obama released his first two ads of the cycle in Iowa today. It was a relatively modest buy, but he is getting a lot of earned media out of it. They are by and large bio pieces and pretty traditional political ads.

The first ad is called "Carry" and emphasizes his ability to work in a bi-partisan manner and highlights his work in the IL legislature on health care among other issues.

The second ad is titled "Choices" and focuses on his work as a community organizer.

Interesting move not to put them in YouTube, but brightcove configured this way let me grab the code. No real big difference from a user perspective.

This weekend I had the opportunity to join a few fellow bloggers and interview Elizabeth Edwards. I had written a post last week arguing that there was not a huge controversy between the advocacy of Michael Moore for single payer health care in SiCKO and the presidential contender plans that would by and large stay within the private health insurance industry. This was an opportunity to put that to the test. I opted to ask Elizabeth about the differences between single payer and John's plan and she immediately emphasized that they really were not that far apart.

They are not that different... And honestly single payer is not going to pass in this country. It is not going to happen. We may get to single payer, but we are not going to jump to single payer.

John is in favor of bold moves about a lot of things, but we have to be realistic and the point is to get people covered. So, John's program allows private insurers, if they bid and are willing to follow a pretty stringent set of rules to participate. But he also has a government option.

After a bit of back and forth, Elizabeth explicitly presented the Edwards plan as a transitional piece of legislation between the current system and single payer. She highlighted the support from Paul Krugman and another health policy expert at Princeton that John has the best plan.

It's got the specificity, got the capacity to pass and is actually is probably our most logical path for us to take, if we are ever going to get to single payer.

This is right in line with what I have been writing on these pages. The interview was the first time that I have seen a campaign argue along these lines. The country is not in a place to pass single payer right now. First people need to see that the government can provide affordable, more efficient health care, before there is support for a truly universal governmental program. It is fascinating to see this kind of progressive policy argument be made.

The LA Times works hard at creating a story around the Democratic presidential contenders not endorsing the message of SiCKO and the potential of that to upset liberal activists. The problem is that it is not happening. It is a manufactured story. One only needs to trundle over to recommended list on Daily Kos, which is as good as any temperature reading of the activist base of the Democratic party as anywhere. On it is a piece titled "LA Times Hit Piece on SiCKO and American People". The reaction to the article was not to go off on the candidates, but the paper itself for fanning the flames of a non-story.

Here is what the LAT said:

Rejecting Moore's prescription on healthcare could alienate liberal activists, who will play a big role in choosing the party's next standard-bearer. However, his proposal — wiping out private health insurance and replacing it with a massive federal program — could be political poison with the larger electorate.

It is a legitimate question to ask, but some digging, or heck even getting the authors to talk to their colleagues in Sacramento would have gotten them an answer. The Democratic base already supports single payer health care, however, the majority recognizes that it is not currently a viable option on the national scale. Indeed that is the purpose of SiCKO, to spread the message to the greater electorate. Michael Moore understands that dynamic, which is why he appeared with Fabian Nunez, despite the obvious disconnect between his message and the current path of the legislature.

The LAT goes way overboard with this:

If Moore's fire-breathing proposal catches on among party activists, who tend to be suspicious of the private sector and supportive of direct government action, the candidates' pragmatic, consensus-seeking ideas could look like weak-kneed temporizing — much the way their rejection of an immediate pullout from Iraq has drawn heated criticism from antiwar activists.

Their bias is clear in labeling SiCKO as a "fire-breathing proposal". They are framing single payer health care as something that is supported by the dirty f#**# hippies that want an immediate pullout from Iraq. They see no nuance.

Now, don't get me wrong. There will be a certain percentage of the activist left who does attack the presidential candidates on this. Just as there are those here in California attacking Democrats over their health care legislation. However, the overwhelming response has been supportive of both pushing the American public on single payer and the contenders health care plans that move us in that direction. They are not mutually exclusive.

The two are not an easy match, but the media is the one pressing the candidates on the issue, trying to stir up trouble where little exists. They will continue to press the candidates at their press conferences, because it makes a nice little story for them.

The presidential campaign seems to have settled down in to a groove. Candidates traipse across the country rarely going a day without fundraising and calling at least one press conference. The early primary states are lavished with much more attention than the February 5th states. Every few weeks there is a debate or an event where they all get to make their stump speeches. This week it is the Take Back America conference in DC. The ratio of campaign events to campaign events is shifting as the quarterly deadline approaches and the need to feed the media beast with a large figure drives decisions. Hillary Clinton had a pretty classic campaign day today, which the AP details.

She was in her now home state of New York, but was upstate most of the day, going from appearance to appearance. She started off in Buffalo at the Eero Saarinenn designed Kleinhan Music hall for a $500 plate breakfast fundraiser. A neat space actually, if you happen to find yourself in Buffalo. It's right on the Frederick Law Olmsted park. Clinton left from there to plant trees with Buffalo's mayor at the City Honors High School. She had brought along seeds from a white ash tree from Eleanor Roosevelt's Hyde Park estate Val-Kill. The trees were meant to replace the ones that were lost in an enormous (even for Buffalo) snow storm. That one forced my grandmother to evacuate her home for a few days. The planting appearance gave Hillary a chance to promote her energy and environmental policy positions.

After planting trees and raising cash Clinton headed East to Rochester for a meeting on the city's crime rate and an opportunity to talk about her national anti-violence initiatives. Oh and she has another fundraiser scheduled in Rochester later today.

In that way, Clinton said, she sees her presidential run as a positive for New York.

"There's a linkage between everything I do in and for New York and what I'm trying to do on the campaign trail and what I want to do as president," Clinton said at City Honors High School, where a lawn full of children awaited her arrival for more than an hour.

"You can talk about global warming right here in Buffalo while we're planting trees that are going to benefit the people of Buffalo, and I want to make those connections," she said.

It is an effective approach that is employed by all of the major candidates. They smoothly transition from event, to press conference, to fundraiser. I am simply amazed that they don't screw up the name of the town more often, as they plant trees to harvest voters and cash.

The first major independent campaign for the 2008 presidential primary in California has just been launched. Called Vote Hope, the group explicitly has laid out it's goal of "banking" 500,000 early votes for Barack Obama in California. From their official launch blog post:

Vote Hope, which officially launches today, is led by a network of activists for social justice in California who want to ensure that the voices of diverse Californians are heard during this critical part of the democratic process.

We are inspired by Barack Obama’s life experience, his vision for the country, and his calls for people to self-organize in a new wave of political participation. We are heeding that call and building something ourselves that will be value-added in California — starting now.

They are completely upfront about their organizing strategy, which is heavily focused on grassroots organizing, using data files.

Vote Hope will work over the next seven months to identify 500,000 Barack Obama supporters – online and in communities, through traditional organizing and non-traditional cultural events – who will vote early for Obama, either by mail or at the county registrar’s office. Early voting in California will begin Jan. 7, and we will be running a sophisticated, voter-file-driven program to turn out our early votes before the Iowa caucuses even begin.

We know that Barack Obama has deep support in California, much of it from ordinary people in constituencies that have been all but ignored by every major campaign in recent memory, particularly young people and in communities of color. There are millions of people in California who are registered but don’t vote regularly, and millions more who are eligible to be registered. We’re going to engage them, empower them with tools and data, and we’re going to win California for Barack Obama.

I know several of the folks working on this campaign. It will be interesting to see them put this plan into action and see how successful this strategy at actually driving votes into Obama's column.

The new LAT political blog is off to an uneven start. I have appreciated the heads up on coming polls and articles. But this is a silly hit on Obama. First they knock him for showing up to greenhouse gas press conference in an SUV.

Barack Obama showed up for a sparsely-attended news conference in Brentwood Tuesday to outline his plans to reduce greenhouse gases. The scene was a gas station that sells fuel made from vegetable oils. Good so far.

Trouble was he drove up in one of those big hulking SUVs that political campaigns (and the Secret Service) are so fond of driving. "When I'm president," Obama said, "any vehicle purchased by the federal government" will have a flexible fuel system that can run on ethanol. "Government should lead the way," he said.

Uuum, the Secret Service is kinda in charge of Obama's transportation. It is up to them to determine what is safe for him to travel in or not. I doubt that there is an armored Prius laying around in every town for him to rent. Would Malcom rather that Obama switch to a hybrid just around the corner from the event as other politicians have done?

Malcom then links to his collegue's article on Obama and coal-to-liquid fuels, as a sign of a shifting position. Trouble is that Obama has always said that his support for the program would rests on finding a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the production of coal-to-liquid fuels. The news is that he put a number on it, saying that he would only back the program if they "emit at least 20% less life-cycle carbon than conventional fuels." His support for the program, was often reported without the caveat and he move to cut off the confusion. It was a good move and worthy of clarification.