Wampum

Update: According to the SacBee tonight, Senator Obama's campaign has now asked the CDP to reinstate the purged delegate candidates. See, not all press is good press after all.

Really, this is just stupid. Stupid. It's normal to "cull" a few people, but I think Senator Obama's campaign really blew it here:

Calif. delegate lists under scrutiny
By Michael R. Blood
Associated Press Writer / April 9, 2008

LOS ANGELES—Barack Obama's and Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaigns are purging potential California delegates to ensure that only their loyalists vote at the national convention that will crown one of them as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Locked in a race with an uncertain outcome, representatives for both camps this week directed the California Democratic Party to remove dozens of names from the lists of more than 2,000 potential delegates. Party caucuses scheduled for Sunday will elect a slate of delegates for each candidate.

Driven by fears that some prospective delegates might be concealing their true allegiances, the campaigns are searching campaign finance data, scouring the Internet and making telephone calls to weed out dubious candidates.

Neither side wants to elect a delegate who might really support their rival, or other candidate.

Most of the cutting was done by Obama. His campaign dropped about 900 potential delegates, compared to about 50 excluded on Clinton's side.

Fifty is probably too many as well, but nine hundred? These people are party activist who cared enough to fill out the application and expected they'd have a chance to make their case to their fellow activists and either win or lose via the ballot box. And now they've been branded as potentially "disloyal" to their candidate? These are not $5 online donors, but blood, sweat and tears die-hards - your hard and fast base.

Does Senator Obama plan to field a campaign in California in the general election? If so, he might have just alienated 900 of the best organizers and fundraisers. Just stupid, and so unnecessary.

Democracy works, guys. Even within the Democratic Party. You ought to try it sometime. Grumble.