The other day, I started posting what I hope will be a few regular diaries leading into February 19th, on Wisconsin's primary.  The first diary was a bit of a meandering primer look at the state of affairs in Wisconsin.  I focused a bit more on organization since that's what I have seen (or not seen, as the case has been) in the course of the campaign.  Tonight, I'd like to explore a bit of what I see happening with the Obama campaign in terms of building on the tremendous enthusiasm I see from their camp.

Now that Super Duper Tuesday has come and gone, seems like time to turn our collective attention to the next few states scattered around the county.  I have long maintained that Super Duper Tuesday would solve nothing and that the states that followed immediately after it would set the tone for the rest of the race and define the terms by which the candidates would fight for delegates.  Since I'm Peter from WI, and since I'm pretty well-connected to statewide Democratic politics, I figured I'd try to blog for the next couple of weeks leading into our primary on February 19th.  Read on for a grassroots and grasstops take on the primary here in Wisconsin...I'll start with this diary just being a bit of a primer.

[This is an extension of the debut of my new Wisconsin-focused blog Take Back the Assembly, with content included here to bring non-Wisconsin folks up to speed.]

Back in 2006, the glory days of November brought Wisconsin some major gains for Democrats.  We re-elected a Democratic governor for the first time in decades.  We re-took the state senate to hold a decisive 19-15 majority.  And in the state assembly, we took eight seats, bringing the Republican majority to a razor-thin margin of 51-48.  Election night was just one fantastic announcement after another.  But today, 16 months out from Election Day 2008, the radical right-wingers in the Wisconsin GOP passed an incredibly regressive budget, just one more example of being out of touch with people in Wisconsin and reality both.  Time to retake the assembly, time to take our state back.

For weeks, nay months, leading up to this past weekend's Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention, I had been excited.  Not just because the annual convention is a fast-paced, interesting reunion of people I know from past campaigns and current projects and a chance to meet allies for now and the future, but also because I was really excited to have on consolidated weekend to bring to the state's most active Democrats the gospel of John Edwards and to see how well he would poll amongst the likeliest primary voters and most committed activists.  The anticipation was not ill-founded, and my excitement to see John Edwards do well in my own state was even underestimated.  And I think that what went down this weekend has some lessons for how the race for 2008 might shape up.

[Cross-posted at my blog, Madison For Edwards]

The biggest regret that I have of a year just about halfway done is that I was not able to figure out a way to go to Take Back America, a conference put on by the Campaign for America's Future along with sponsors making up who's who of progressive organizations and outlets.  TBA2007 has an impressive lineup of both speakers and breakout sessions.  One session I definitely would have hit today (among many) would be the panel with freshman Democratic senators, which included one of my political heroes, Sherrod Brown.  But really, you couldn't go wrong at TBA2007.  Everything was good.  I can imagine that the only bad thing about it was that you might miss a session.  At least I'll have Yearly Kos.

[More after the jump on CAF, TBA2007, and John Edwards rocking the house]

Warning: No candidate-fluffing here

With some fanfare, but certainly not enough, the Campaign For America's Future (which also makes happen TomPaine.com), released a report the other day, entitled "The Progressive Majority: Why a conservative America is a myth."  (Also note, the report was a joint project of CAF and Media Matters)  I read it cover to cover in about 25 minutes, and it's a wonderful little compilation.  Besides some mention on a few blogs and on various websites (including the aforementioned TomPaine.com), I have heard scant little about it.  Although my local AirAmerica affiliate broadcasts "Ring of Fire" and they discussed it along with an interview with CAF president Robert Borosage, a favorite of mine, there has been really no larger-scale media coverage.  This week, CAF is leading the effort to put on this year's version of the Take Back America conference.

More on this, and other things (including a link to the aforementioned report), after the jump.

[cross-posted on my blog at Madison For Edwards]

At the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention, on the heels of the SCSU debates from Thursday, John Edwards was the third speaker after Joe Biden and Bill Richardson.  As he was closing up his speech, which included the simple statement of why he is running for president as "so everyone in America has the same opportunities that I have had," he made a promise to the assembled delegates from the South Carolina Democratic Party.  He said that he would, as the nominee, be back to South Carolina to campaign in that state to do two things.  First, he would campaign there to win the state, and second, he would campaign there to continue to build the Democratic Party in South Carolina and in the South.  That's a bold promise, breaking the mold of our past nominees and something that bodes well for the vitality of our party nationally.

Ever wish you could bang pollsters and professional survey outfits over the head and say "dammit you're doing it wrong!" like I have?  Seems like it, since right here on MyDD, there's been a lot of discussion around Bowers' Inflated Clinton Poll Theory and the Democratic Strategist even picked up on it.  Well what if we could actually design what a survey looks like?  Check below the fold for more...