The Inquirer is reporting:
Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president today in Pittsburgh, sending a message both to the state's primary voters and to undecided superdelegates who might decide the close race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Dan Pfeiffer, deputy communications director for the Obama campaign, confirmed that Casey would announce his support during a rally at the Soldiers and Sailors Military Museum and Memorial and that he would then set out with the Illinois senator on part of a six-day bus trip across the state.
Updates
Liveblog
http://www.philly.com/...
A few photos (and there are thousands online under
creative commons you can use)
http://www.flickr.com/...
Video probably will be up sometime today at
http://www.youtube.com/...
From http://westernpaforobama.com/...
The rally will be at 11 am ET Friday. I imagine it will be streamed on cnn.com and other sites (as well as available soon afterwards on YouTube. Hopefully, C-Span will carry some verite coverage of the bus tour.
The endorsement comes as something of a surprise. Casey, a deliberative and cautious politician, had been adamant about remaining neutral until after the April 22 primary. He had said he wanted to help unify the party after the intensifying fight between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton...
Obama strategists hope that Casey can help their candidate make inroads with the white working-class men who are often referred to as "Casey Democrats." This group identifies with the brand of politics Casey and his late father, a former governor, practiced - liberal on economic issues but supportive of gun rights and opposed to abortion. (Obama favors some gun-control measures and backs abortion rights.)...
Casey sees Obama as an "underdog" in the campaign who sacrificed at the beginning of his career to be a community organizer "in the shadows of the closed steel mills in Chicago," said a source close to Casey who is familiar with the endorsement decision but was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
The source, reached by The Inquirer yesterday, said that Casey was also impressed with how Obama had stood up to the pressures of the campaign, including recent attacks over the racially incendiary remarks of his former pastor.
Casey's decision was also personal, motivated in part by the enthusiasm his four daughters - Elyse, Caroline, Julia and Marena - have expressed for Obama, the source said. "He thinks we shouldn't be deaf to the voices of the next generation."
It will be interesting to see what the impact of Casey's support will be (and if James Carville will keep his mouth shut).
It may not be enough for Obama to win, but even a narrow loss could be seen as a victory in the media expectations game.
It is also another case where the children of a political figure were a major inspiration for an endorsement. Let's just hope there is a record youth turnout in the fall.