Dear Lowell,

When we won Iowa, the Clinton campaign said it's not the number of states you win, it's "a contest for delegates."

When we won a significant lead in delegates, they said it's really about which states you win.

When we won South Carolina, they discounted the votes of African-Americans.

When we won predominantly white, rural states like Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska, they said those didn't count because they won't be competitive in the general election.

When we won in Washington State, Wisconsin, and Missouri -- general election battlegrounds where polls show Barack is a stronger candidate against John McCain -- the Clinton campaign attacked those voters as "latte-sipping" elitists.

And now that we've won more than twice as many states, the Clinton spin is that only certain states really count.

But the facts are clear.

For all their attempts to discount, distract, and distort, we have won more delegates, more states, and more votes.

Meanwhile, more than half of the votes that Senator Clinton has won so far have come from just five states. And in four of these five states, polls show that Barack would be a stronger general election candidate against McCain than Clinton.

We're ready to take on John McCain. But we also need to build operations in places like Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, and Oregon that will hold their primaries in April and May.

Barack Obama needs your support right now to fight this two-front battle. Please make a donation of $100 right now:

https://donate.barackobama.com...

With our overwhelming victory in the Mississippi primary yesterday, our lead in earned delegates is now wider than it was on March 3rd, before the contests in Ohio and Texas.

And thanks to your help, we have dramatically increased our support among so-called "superdelegates" -- Governors, Members of Congress, and party officials who have a vote at the Democratic National Convention in August.

As the number of remaining delegates dwindles, Hillary Clinton's path to the nomination seems less and less plausible.

Now that Mississippi is behind us, we move on to the next ten contests. The Clinton campaign would like to focus your attention only on Pennsylvania -- a state in which they have already declared that they are "unbeatable."

But Pennsylvania is only one of those 10 remaining contests, each important in terms of allocating delegates and ultimately deciding who our nominee will be.

We have activated our volunteer networks in each of these upcoming battlegrounds. We're putting staff on the ground and building our organization everywhere.

The key to victory is not who wins the states that the Clinton campaign thinks are important. The key to victory is realizing that every vote and every voter matters.

Throughout this entire process, the Clinton campaign has cherry-picked states, diminished caucuses, and moved the goal posts to create a shifting, twisted rationale for why they should win the nomination despite winning fewer primaries, fewer states, fewer delegates, and fewer votes.

We must stand up to the same-old Washington politics. Barack has won twice as many states, large and small, in every region of the country -- many by landslide margins. And this movement is expanding the base of the Democratic Party by attracting new voters in record numbers and bringing those who had lost hope back into the political process.

Push back against the spin and help build the operation to win more delegates in these upcoming contests:

https://donate.barackobama.com...

Thank you for your support and for everything you've done to build a movement that is engaging voters and winning contests in every part of this country.

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

1.  The principal cause for Democratic dismay and Republican hope in the presidential race is the bitterness among Democratic voters as a result of the Obama-Clinton competition. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has been a passionate favorite of black voters, who say they will not vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) if she "steals" the nomination. To a lesser extent, white Clinton voters are saying they could never support Obama.

  2. Such internal anger usually fades once the nominee is actually selected. Nevertheless, the racial nature of Democratic struggles worries party insiders. The racial divide on the Obama-Clinton dispute is widening, helped along by Geraldine Ferraro's recent comments (see below).

  3. Democratic leaders are still absolutely determined that the nomination will be decided before the delegates convene in Denver the last week in August. Since neither Obama nor Clinton will be able to get a majority of delegates after the primaries (even after possible re-votes in Michigan and Florida), the super-delegates must name the winner on the basis of which candidate has the momentum. Obama has the edge, but his nomination is not certain.

  4. Nobody absolutely rules out the possibility that Denver could become the first truly contested Democratic convention since Chicago in 1952. But it surely would be ugly, with possible credentials fights. Republicans can only pray that this happens.

For those of you who are Obama supporters and who are elected as local delegates in April to go to your district and state convention, you will vote at your CD convention to determine who represents you in Denver.  At-large delegates allocated based on the primary results will be elected at the state convention.

Please be sure that the individual(s) you vote for agree to support Obama on as many ballots as it taks for him to secure the nomination.  In addition, have them to commit to you that they will vote with the Obama campaign on any rules and credentials floor votes.  And get their committment in writing.