Election Central Saturday Roundup

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Obama: Let Us Celebrate The Peaceful Transfer Of Power
In his new Presidential YouTube Address, his last one before the inauguration, Barack Obama recognizes the importance of the transition of power, and how we often take the peaceful transfer of power for granted:

“Through the ages, many have struggled for the right to live in a land where power does not belong to one person or party, and many brave Americans have fought and died to help advance that right,” Obama says. “Through the long twilight struggle of the Cold War, our transitions from one President to the next provided a stark contrast to the suffocating grip of Soviet Communism. And today, the resilience of our democracy stands in opposition to the extremists who would tear it down.”

Obama And Biden On Whistle-Stop Tour
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are traveling today by train from Philadelphia to Baltimore, in a whistle-stop tour for people who want to see the new president-elect but wouldn’t have been able to go to the inauguration itself. The Philadelphia event began earlier this morning, with Obama scheduled to met Joe Biden in Delaware at 1 p.m. ET, with another event scheduled for 4:15 p.m. ET.

Obama In Philly: The Election Should Only Be The Beginning
Speaking to the crowd this morning in Philadelphia, Barack Obama declared that his election victory should only be the beginning of changing America for the better. “Starting now, let’s take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union,” Obama said, according to the prepared remarks. “Let’s build a government that is responsible to the people, and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable. Let’s all of us do our part to rebuild this country. Let’s make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning.”

Obama Creates Political Organizing Committee
The Obama campaign is now being transformed into a new committee, “Organizing for America,” which will leverage his database of 13 million e-mail addresses and other supporter information to set up community organizations across the country. Here’s his YouTube announcing it:

Essentially, as the Associated Press points out, this will be his re-election campaign-in-waiting for 2012, as a parallel organization to the Democratic National Committee, in addition to the stated purpose of promoting his policy goals.

Obama: I Think I Can Keep The BlackBerry — But I’ll Be Careful
Barack Obama told CNN that he thinks he’ll be able to keep his BlackBerry, rather than have to give it up over privacy and security concerns. “Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN,” Obama did say cautiously. “So I make sure that — to think before I press ‘send.'”

Obama Calls US Airways Pilot Sullenberger
The Obama transition team announced that Barack Obama yesterday called Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of US Airways flight 1549 who safely landed his damaged passenger plane in the Hudson River, and spoke to him for five minutes. Obama thanked Sullenberger for his heroism.

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