Marin County is Obama country

Obama delegate Norman Solomon hails from Marin County’s 6th Congressional District, a Democratic stronghold where Barack Obama support is 20 points ahead of Hillary Clinton’s frontyard signs.

“The largest margin for Obama in the state,” said Solomon, a longtime left-of-center writer and activist who was named one of three Obama delegates from U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s 6th District in the Democratic Party’s April 13 statewide caucuses.

Solomon said that despite Clinton delegates being outgunned in both Marin and Sonoma counties, “I’m really seeing first-hand virtually no bad feeling between supporters of one candidate and supporters of the other candidate.”

The 56-year-old West Marin resident started this long campaign cycle as a fairly traditional progressive, backing Dennis Kucinich and then over time finding himself warming not to Obama at first, but John Edwards. “I voted for Edwards and I voted for him by mail before he dropped out of the (California) race,” he said.

All of California’s Clinton and Obama at-large, elected and super delegates will meet in Sacramento on May 18 for orientation before the Democratic National Convention. “My energies this spring and into the November election are very much behind Obama,” said Solomon, adding that the Sacramento gathering will be, “a chance for people to talk informally.”

A self-described, “registered Democrat about 90% of the time,”“ Solomon volunteered for the McGovern ‘72 campaign and in subsequent elections registered at times as a decline-to-state independent and a Green Party voter. The increasing irrelevance of each Ralph Nader presidential bid convinced Solomon four years ago that Nader’s ‘04 campaign was a, “ridiculous, absurd and dangerous campaign.” Nader’s possible voting booth divisiveness back then prompted Solomon to travel the swing states of Oregon and Washington to try to convince progressives to back John Kerry.

He now opposes both the current Nader bid and the equally implausible ‘08 run of Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. “I don’t believe in the wisdom of any Nader or McKinney presidential campaign in any swing state,” said Solomon, emphasizing later that his complaint is with the Nader and McKinney campaigns - “not them as individuals.”