Deval Patrick

It's all but over, according to the Obama campaign.

"We can see the finish line," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe on a conference call just now. Plouffe said the net of last night's primaries was 13 delegates in the candidate's favor, making Obama's advantage "the biggest it has been in the entire race." Plouffe said that the campaign had also been "making great progress in the superdelegate world."

He then introduced the campaign's top supporters, each carrying a nail to hammer into Clinton's coffin.

John Kerry said, "In my judgment, last night, Barack Obama took a giant and decisive step towards the nomination." He added, "He clearly did more than he had to and she did not achieve what she had to."

He argued that Obama scored impressive results "despite the toughest weeks of his campaign and the most thorough testing that could be imagined," and said, "If it hadn't been for Republicans taking Democratic ballots," at the bidding of Rush Limbaugh he would have won Indiana too. "There is no masquerade now."  read more »

Earlier today, Jake Tapper noted that there was another instance when Barack Obama used words that Deval Patrick previously said:

Patrick in June 2006, at the Massachusetts Democratic party convention: "I am not asking anybody to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

Obama one year later, as quoted in USA Today: "I am not asking anyone to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."  read more »

Understandably, Joe Biden's campaign-ending bout with plagiarism two decades ago has been getting its share of attention over the past 24 hours, with the Clinton campaign drawing a parallel with Barack Obama's lift of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's words.

Certainly, Obama's delivery of the passage in question was pretty much identical, as the video evidence now available on YouTube clearly shows. So why isn't it being treated with the same gravity?  read more »

On a Clinton campaign conference call with reporters this morning, Howard Wolfson and Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts presented two events as part of the same pattern: the Obama campaign’s apparent equivocating on a promise to take public financing in a general election against John McCain (whether or not what he said constitutes a pledge is disputed) and the emergence of video evidence that part of a recent Obama speech was almost exactly the same as part of a speech given by Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.  read more »

Ted Kennedy's direct link to Camelot means that his endorsement of Barack Obama will have national implications. But its impact might be most acute in Massachusetts, one of the largest states to vote on February 5 and a very winnable target for Obama.

Polling has been sporadic in Massachusetts, but Hillary Clinton has led -- often decisively -- in the surveys taken so far. But her margins may shrink as the state's electorate focuses more closely on the race, and in the wake of Obama's South Carolina victory.

With Kennedy on board, Obama now has a monopoly on the Bay State's highest profile Democrats: John Kerry signed on two weeks ago, and Governor Deval Patrick endorsed Obama late last fall.  read more »

One small Obama-related detail from last night: The "Yes we can!" refrain that Barack Obama trumpeted in his concession speech was actually the campaign theme adopted by Deval Patrick, a top Obama supporter who rode the slogan to the Massachusetts governorship in 2006. Patrick, the first African-American governor in Massachusetts history, showed a cross-partisan appeal similar to Obama's in '06, winning strongly even in Republican areas in his 20-point triumph. Patrick campaigned for Obama in New Hampshire over the weekend and was in attendance at his campaign party in Nashua tonight.

He was Bill's special project for Hillary's campaign.  read more »

In a significant but thoroughly unsurprising development, Deval Patrick has been declared the next governor of Massachusetts, marking the first time since 1986 that a Democrat has won the governorship of what may be the bluest state in the nation. Patrick, who headed up the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department under Bill Clinton and who later served as an executive with Texaco and Coca-Cola, will become only the second black governor in American history. Given his relative youth (51 years old) and magnetic personality, he figures to emerge as a nationally-significant leader.

The two other black gubernatorial nominees-- Republicans Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania -- have both lost their bids handily. And in Connecticut, M. Jodi Rell, the Republican who succeeded John Rowland two years ago, has won a full four-year term, defeating New Haven Mayor John DiStefano. The suspense in Connecticut is whether her coattails will boost the state's three endangered GOP House incumbents -- Christopher Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons.