Obama's Springfield homecoming today: Links to my 2007 posts on his campaign announcement

WASHINGTON – On a frigid Springfield day nine years ago, then Sen. Barack Obama, and Illinois Democrat, officially kicked off his first presidential bid. He is returning to Springfield today to mark the anniversary, so I put together links from several of my blog posts from that week – including his speech on the steps of the Old State Capitol

CLICK HERE for Feb. 10, 2007 speech text

A telling passage:

“And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States.

I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness – a certain audacity – to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

CLICK HERE for my Feb. 10, 2007 post with a lot of details about the first Obama campaign webpage, headlined, “Sweet blog scoop: The new Obama website is about You!”

An excerpt..While Obama announced his presidential exploratory bid on a podcast at www.barackobama.com, the web site itself was light on content and nothing special.

The souped up version at the same address provides significant insight into the unfolding Obama campaign ethos and what will be an emphasis on using “new media” platforms for organizing door-knocking volunteers, netroot activists and fundraising.

The web site features the new Obama logo, built around the letter O (or a globe, depending) stuffed with three road-like red stripes, a blue sky and a white sun or moon. That logo has already been branded on everything from the press and staffer ID’s handed out on Thursday, to lapel pins for the ranking aides, to the new Obama clothing line.

The Obama campaign New Media Director is Joe Rospars, a veteran of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, which in its day was seen as an innovative leader in using the Internet as a critical campaign tool.

At 11:25 p.m. on Thursday Rospars blogged on the site, “I’m writing now because we’re making the final tweaks on the initial set of tools and functionality that will hopefully help a lot of people like you hit the ground running and start this campaign off with the culture of self-organizing that Senator Obama wants to build.,”

CLICK HERE for post “Money Obama now spurns helped launch White House bid.”