The Feel Of The Ground: The Democrats

** Note correction

** Obama's closing argument is more audacious than it seems; it's an end-run around the established interests of the Democratic Party. He is angering -- often deliberately -- some of the party's core constituencies; Markos "Daily Kos" Moulitsas and my Atlantic colleague, Matt Yglesias, have both (sort of) withdrawn their endorsements of Obama because of his penchant for allegedly using right-wing talking points to smear his Democratic rivals. Correction: ** Moulitsas has not endorsed Obama.

** But if Barack Obama is drawing all those independents...if he can get Republicans to increase their turnout at the Democratic caucuses by 400%...if he can get independents to almost outnumber Democrats at the Democratic caucuses, most Democrats here would agree that he deserves to be their nominee.

** And there is no chance whatsoever that the Democratic Party would not be as united around Obama as it would around any nominee of comparable star-power.

** By the way: long-term political observers here and the media cognoscenti seem to think that of Edwards, Clinton and Obama, Obama has the least compelling closing argument. But it may not matter; he may have already sealed the deal with enough voters; independents may really be getting what he says. So the gut feeling of reporters may not be correct.

** Some of the second tier candidates are beginning to draw large crowds, like Joe Biden, for whom 500 showed up in Des Moines, 300 in Mason City, and 250 in Dubuque. I doubt that Biden will finish in the top three, but he's clearly got the deepest well of support among the second-tier Dems, and he's a strong second choice candidate for many supporters of the top-tier Democrats. His strength is found in cities like Dubuque -- he did very well there the last time he ran.