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California Dreamin'

February 05, 2008 2:29 PM

Cynthia McFadden Reports:

It is still morning in Los Angeles -- a gorgeous, clear morning for voting.   So expect a big turnout.  In fact, over half a million new voters registered to vote today, so expect a super big turnout.
 
All the campaigns are California dreamin'.  We were in Long Beach last night where Mitt Romney swooped in for a very large, very noisy, very enthusiastic rally, planned at the last minute in reaction to improving poll numbers out here.   The crowd of a 1,000+ was thrilled by his message:  a tough talking, hard-headed, no nonsense push for conservative values and economic prosperity.  The biggest response came when the former Massachusetts governor vowed to end illegal immigration. 

Romney, as is often the case, was surrounded by members of his family, including the newest grandbaby -- a two and-a-half month old who behaved like an old campaign hand. Not a peep, even as the crowd stomped and hollered. 

Of course, the contest between senators Obama and Clinton is a real cliff-hanger and the chattering class is whopping it up.  This morning at the Four Season's dining room -- a place famous for its appeal to Hollywood movers and shakers -- you could hear the two names floating through the air drowning out even the talk  of yesterday's Oscars lunch. The fresh squeezed orange juice flowed, as did talk of Obama's  "wave" and Hillary's "roots."   In fact, the Clintons (both of them) have long-standing and deep connections here, especially in the Latino community -- and 20 percent of the eligible Democratic voters are Latino.  Polls say she has a 2-1 lead with Latinos and our experience downtown at a largest Latino market place bore that out.  We talked to dozens of Hispanic voters, all of whom said Clinton was their candidate.

But oh, Obama.  This is a town that knows star power and much of the  creative community is flocking to his side.   One campaign official told me yesterday that even Obama posters have gone viral with a slew of notable artists creating them and distributing them on their own.  There is definitely a sense that he may pull a major upset, which is really astonishing when you realize Clinton was 30 points ahead here not so long ago.

A note about tonight: you may be well advised to nap this afternoon if you want to stay up for the California results. Officials here say that they expect twenty percent of the paper ballots won't get counted tonight and that means there may well be no results until Wednesday, or very, very late tonight.  All the more reason to stay up for Nightline. 

Just a word about those paper -- "mail" -- ballots.  Clinton's folks think they will help her as they were mailed (and many people voted) right after her big win in New Hampshire and before Obama's tsunami-like gain.

I could go on, but as I am thumb-typing this on the trusty Blackberry, I will stop for now.  Okay, I admit it, I am sitting by the pool for perhaps the last peaceful moment of the day.  And with all due respect to Iowa and New Hampshire, it is nice to see the sun.

February 5, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

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Posted by: Voter | Feb 5, 2008 4:04:52 PM

Posted by: BlackwaterJon | Feb 5, 2008 4:19:53 PM

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