Over the last few days, a large number of former Edwards supporters have migrated to the campaign of Senator Barack Obama.
During a call requested by Senator Obama, nearly 80 activists from clean tech, the LGBT community and other progressive groups who had supported John Edwards listened to a personal appeal from the Senator. Mostly San Francisco-based, the participants asked questions of the campaign team. Afterwards, a vast majority of the group signed on with the Obama campaign.
Jeff Anderson and Jeff Soukup, who were among the top fundraisers and organizers working for Edwards, said after the call:
"We want anything that we do to honor the causes and issues that John and Elizabeth have fought for. Jeff and I believe that supporting Barack is the best way to do this."
In addition, more than 30 members of the Edwards LGBT Steering Committee, under the leadership of the extraordinary organizer Eric Stern, have en mass endorsed Obama. So far, only four have endorsed Senator Clinton. At this moment, many of the undecided are leaning towards Senator Obama.
In California, the Service Employees International Union, which has nearly 500,000 members and had endorsed Edwards, climbed aboard the Obama bandwagon.
Kate Michelman, one of America's most respected feminists also endorsed Obama on Sunday in a powerful post on The Huffington Post. She said:
"Those of us who until last week worked for Senator John Edwards to become President were always fighting for something bigger than any of us and bigger than all of us. We were also part of a movement with the objective, John’s objective, of lifting up all Americans.
John Edwards is not going to be President, and so what we who were helping him must do is now elect the individual who has deep in his core John’s principles and vision for this country. And so today, with every passion and enthusiasm I have, I am endorsing Senator Barack Obama to be President of the United States
Barack Obama is also calling our nation to the greatness that we all want but that we’re uncertain we can still achieve. Others talk about greatness and they even say all the right words, but they do not bring those words to life. Their words do not grab us by the arms and pull us along together.
Barack Obama, like John Edwards, is redefining what is possible and in so doing he’s changing us, each one of us.
Many who had given up on politics are re-engaging. Many who had grown tolerant of the intolerable are now ready to demand more ¬ and not just from themselves but others. And many who had given up believing that the ideals of equality, dignity and justice would ever again be as politically important as money and power, now believe again"
And this too is why I’m endorsing Senator Barack Obama."
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