WISCONSINREPORT.COM (02/21/08) - Democratic National Committee Member Jason Rae endorsed Barack Obama for president today. Rae, a twenty-one year old college student from Wisconsin, who has been receiving a lot of media attention, is the youngest superdelegate in the country. Rae cited Barack Obama's ability to bring new people, including record numbers of young voters, into the political process. Those qualities were attributes that became quite evident in the Wisconsin Presidential Primary earlier this week when Obama won the majority of votes in the ninth state in a row, adding Hawaii, for the 10th state, later in the day.

Jason Rae had these comments regarding Obama's strengths:

"The Democratic Party is fortunate to have two very talented individuals running for President this election. It is a difficult choice for anyone, but in the end, the choice for me has become clear. I am proudly supporting Senator Barack Obama," Rae said.

"In Wisconsin on Tuesday, voters chose change by an overwhelming margin," Rae said. "Young people – most of whom never voted before – waited in lines for hours to cast their vote for Obama."

"As a young member of the Democratic National Committee I know that I represent America’s next generation of voters, and clearly my generation has chosen Senator Obama," Rae explained.

"According to CNN exit polls, Senator Obama carried 73 percent of Wisconsin voters aged 18-24 and 66percent of those 25-29. When I see numbers like that, I know that there is no other person who can bring out new voters to the party like Senator Obama can," Rae added.

The 21 year old says Barack Obama "has inspired a new generation of voters to get active and energized in the political process."

Barack Obama has been pulling ahead of aHillary Clinton in pledged delegates from each of the primary or caucus contests that have been taking place. The Obama campaign count as of this writing, show Obama with 1199 pledged delegates and Hillary with 1040. That total, so far, includes Wisconsin's 74 delegates (Barack Obama 42, Hillary Clinton 32).

The delegate count does not include any of the 185 Florida delegates, nor, the 128 delegates in Michigan. Both of the states, and the candidates, were told by the Democratic National Committee that delegates from those states would not be counted as a penalty for holding their primaries before the DNC wanted them to.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are looking toward the total delegate count needed to earn the party's nomination to be on the November ballot against the Republican candidate. The total needed to qualify is 2265 delegates.

The national convention will be held in the latter part of August 2008, and, there are many state primaries to take place before then. The next state primaries will be March 4th when primaries will be held in Ohio (141 delegates), Texas (193), Vermont (15) and Rhode Island (21).