My wife, a Lower Merion Township (anchor of the Main Line in Montgomery County, just outside of Philly and one of the key PA battlegrounds) Commissioner, got an e-mail this morning from one of her colleagues this morning recounting his experience at a high-roller - $1k minimum - "intimate" dinner fund raising event with the almost, but not quite, putative nominee, Barack Obama.
Flip the fold for his report (provided with his permission)...
Went to his fundraiser in Bryn Mawr last night. A madhouse. They expected 120-150 and an indoor intimate meet the candidate thing. In the last 48 hours, the email list exploded-over 800 people in an outdoor tent. He was electric. People went nuts-all these rich Main Line white folk with a large influx of African Americans-the most integrated event I have ever seen in Lower Merion for anything outside of MLK events.
They said polling of yesterday had her lead cut in PA down to 5%. They raised over $900,000. MOMENTUM....
So, in the ever increasingly Democratic bastion of Lower Merion (oh how I love that!), not only anchor of the Main Line, but anchor of Democratic aspirations in Montgomery Count (where we took not one but 5 row offices for the first time in the memory of just about anyone still alive), an area with lots of women smack in the middle of HRC's base - women like HRC backer State Senator and member of team Rendell, Connie Williams, where the County Chair, Marcel Groen has come out strong for HRC, the Obama campaign out performed their own expectations by not 100%, not 200%, but 430% (give or take using the high-side 150 number). I think we can live with that.
And, in case you missed it, the campaign apparently relayed (what I assume to be internal) polling showing a 5% HRC lead, that would be a 13 or 14% Obama gain in the last 2 weeks or so. I can live with that too.
Needless to say, if we can keep this clear and obvious momentum going so that Barack wins or even ties HRC on April 22nd, it really will be over.
We can only hope keep working our asses off to make it happen!
Update [2008-4-2 17:2:29 by jsmagid]:
As requested Main Line (stolen in large part from comment by cjs109 below) = tony western suburbs of Philadelphia, most famously depicted in "The Philadelphia Story" and "Thirty Something." Named after the "main" railroad "line," the R5 where the elite class from Philadelphia built their summer vacation homes mansions. Traditionally republican, white and wealthy; still predominantly white and wealthy, but increasingly more Democratic as noted above.
The Main Line R5 line runs up US Route 30, Lancaster Avenue stopping in Narberth Borough (completely surrounded by LMT), Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford (home of Haverford College), Bryn Mawr (home of Bryn Mawr College) - all part of Lower Merion - Wayne (Radnor Township), Devon, Malvern and Paoli (and probably a few more stops in between I'm not familiar with).