“Vote today!”

As I was walking out of Hill College House this morning to begin covering Penn for Obama’s on-campus effort, a guy wearing a “Barack the Vote” shirt reminded me that today is, in fact, the Pennsylvania primary.

After informing him that sadly, I’m registered in California and cast my vote on Super Tuesday (and kicking myself for thinking back then that Pennsylvania wouldn’t matter), I continued across campus to find students stationed on the corner of 34th and Walnut, outside of Upper Quad gate, and on Locust Walk.

According to Penn for Obama co-president Julian Harris, the group has split the campus into five zones — Locust Walk, Spruce Street, Walnut Street, College Green, and the High Rises. They’ve been sending volunteers to each of these locations throughout the day, and will continue to do so until polls close tonight at 8 p.m.

I’ll add more about student responses and what Penn for Obama volunteers said, but for now I’m off to talk to more people who are out campaigning across campus. Check back later today for more updates on the way Penn for Obama has been getting out the vote on campus…

Today is the highly-anticipated Pennsylvania primary. Across the state, polls opened at 7 a.m. and will remain open until 8 p.m.

If you’re registered to vote in Pennsylvania, make sure to get out to your polling place today! The DP made an interactive map of campus polling locations.

Going into today’s primaries, Clinton has approximately a 6-point lead in the polls, according to RealClearPolitics averages. She will be in Philadelphia tonight for her election results-watching party downtown. Obama, however, will leave the state this evening to head to a rally in Evansville, Indiana.

At this point, the Obama campaign still maintains that he is the “underdog” in the state, and it doesn’t seem like expectations for an Obama victory are high. However, with the way things have gone so far this primary season, anything could happen.

Keep checking back here today for updated information about the election. The DP will follow both campaigns as well as student activity here on campus.

Happy Primary Day!

Can Obama draw crowds the size of baseball games and rock concerts for a 20-minute speech?

Apparently, “yes he can”…

Despite the heat, Philadelphia residents came out in record numbers to hear Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speak on Independence Mall last night. According to Obama’s website, the rally drew a crowd of 35,000.

Supporters waited in line for hours in the 80-degree heat to get a spot at the rally. The first man in line, we heard, had been waiting since 7:30 p.m. the previous night.

Members of the press were allowed into the rally area at around 5 p.m., and according to campaign volunteers, Obama was scheduled to speak at around 8 p.m. While the crowd filled the field — and the entire space from the National Constitution Center to Independence Hall — a performance by Black Eyed Peas’ frontman Will.i.am, who wrote the song, “Yes We Can”, kept audience members entertained.
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After a bit of a mix-up with my ticket to the fourth and final Pennsylvania episode of “The Colbert Report,” I was offered the chance to watch the taping of the show from the side of the stage — an opportunity I was certainly not going to turn down.

I arrived outside Annenberg’s Zellerbach Theatre at 6:15p.m., where I discovered that people started lining up today around 3 p.m. I met up with Renata Luczak from Comedy Central and went into the back of Zellerbach, where I waited in a room with long tables for the press, drinks, and snacks — boxes of sugary (and some healthy) cereals, Oreos, Kudos bars, etc. We heard chants of “Yes We Can!” from the people waiting upstairs to get into the theater, and people started getting frustrated and booing when they were told they couldn’t come into the theater yet.

I sat down and ate some Oreos, and as soon as the rehearsal was over (and “Ben Franklin” –possibly my new hero — walked into the room I was in), Renata took me backstage, then we walked out onto the stage and into the theater. She found me a place to stand off to the side, and said I could stay there to watch the taping. I could see the whole audience as well as what was going on onstage — it was very cool.

The audience started filing into the theater and after a stand-up comic spoke, Colbert came onstage and answered a few questions from the audience.

And soon afterwards, the show began.

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…and the debate is over.

The final question was about how each candidate would make their case to the superdelegates at the Democratic National Convention this summer if the election ends up being decided by superdelegates.

“I’ll say to them what I’ve said to voters — we need a fighter in the White House,” Clinton said.  She spoke about wanting to make everyone “a part of the American family again,” and said she would urge them to look at her track record in order to see that she’s the best candidate.

Obama talked about the process of involving Americans in change in Washington, saying, “change doesn’t happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up.”

After almost two hours of intense debate (though barely an hour of discussion of actual issues — the first 45 minutes were spent talking about various campaign missteps), it’s finally over. We’ll have to wait to see what the pundits say and what the voters think…

As I was walking back to SEPTA from the Sheraton in Center City, where Illinois Sen. Obama spoke at the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Convention this morning, I happened to pass by Obama’s motorcade. On the sidewalk next to several Secret Service agents and police cars, a group of about 20 or 30 elementary school-age kids stood facing the Sheraton, cheering, “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!”

That in and of itself was pretty cute. But when, only a few minutes later, Obama came out of the building and stopped to talk with the kids before getting in his car, I couldn’t help but say, “Aww….”

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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-Il.) addressed workers at the AFL-CIO Convention in Center City this morning. His opponent, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, delivered a speech at the same convention yesterday.

Entering the room to cheers of, “Yes We Can!”, Obama spoke on a number of issues ranging from foreign policy to the creation of new jobs. Like Clinton did in her speech yesterday, Obama criticized presumptive Republican nominee John McCain (R-Az.) for his continuation of many of the ideals of the Bush administration.

Obama also spent a great deal of time addressing the need for not only a new administration in the White House, but also for a fundamental change in the way Washington works. “People have lost faith, they’ve lost trust, that anybody in Washington is listening to them,” Obama said. “The problems we face go beyond any single administration.”

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At an avail with members of the press after her speech at the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Convention this morning, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton entered looking somber.

“This has been a very hard fought race,” she said. “We need to do something so that our party and our people can make the right decision.”

She almost looked like she was going to cry. Is Hillary dropping out of the race, I wondered?

She then said she had a solution to the problem: “today I am challenging Senator Obama to a bowl-off. A bowling night right here in Pennsylvania. Winner take all. I’ll even spot him two frames.”

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is a lot like Rocky Balboa — or so she said in a speech to the AFL-CIO downtown this morning.

Responding to the calls for Clinton to drop out of the race in order to end the Democratic primary, Clinton used the famous scene at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as an analogy for her continued fight for the nomination: “Could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten half way up those Art Museum steps and said, ‘Well, I guess that’s about far enough?’”

“Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common,” she continued. “I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people.”

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Although currently taking some time off from the campaign trail by vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Sen. Barack Obama will be back on the campaign trail and spending some serious time in Pennsylvania this weekend and next week. He plans to kick off a six-day bus tour of the Keystone State in western Pennsylvania this Friday, and will remain in the state until next Wednesday.

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