Last Thursday, Adam Conner made note of the explosive growth of a new Facebook group called “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack).” [Facebook registration required]

The group was started January 16th - 13 days ago - by what appears to be political amateurs, and hopes to have signed up a million members by February 5th. It seemed impossible, but the group has really taken off.

Conner noted last Thursday that the group had grown by “23,364 members in less then 24 Hours,” and had jumped about a thousand members from the time he started writing his post until he was finished.

Clearly, something is happening here. But are growth rates like this possibly sustainable?

They are. In fact, because of the way that Facebook is structured, the more people join the group the more people are aware of it.

Since late Thursday afternoon, the Facebrook group - which hit 100,000 members a day before the group leaders had hoped to hit 10,000 - has grown from 90,094 members to 157,725 members at 9:10 this morning.

On another topic, Political Insider chastises the media for falling for one of the oldest tricks in the political playbook.

Until April 1st, there’s only one game that matters in the battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination — the donor’s game. The contest to put up the biggest first quarter fundraising number possible is intense and is prone to misinformation and stunts.

Hence, James Carville talks talks and talks some more about Al Gore getting into the race. Let’s boil this down to reality:

* Carville supports Hillary Clinton
* Obama is making a hard and fast play for Hollywood money
* An Al Gore entry into the race is the only thing preventing Obama from running the table on that money in this quarter.

End of story.

And Media Matters takes on the same subject.

A January 28 New York Times article by reporter Jodi Kantor included a quote by Ron Klain, former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore, saying that Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) “style of leadership” might be better suited to running the Harvard Law Review, of which Obama was the first black president, than to “running a country.” […]

But the article did not note that Klain has reportedly signed on with Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-DE) and said he would support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) if Biden “chooses not to run.”

Which makes me wonder about New Yorker Al Sharpton’s recent negative comments about Obama and his friendliness to a Hillary Clinton campaign.

Laura Washington has a different take on that particular subject.

For America’s black leadership, Barack Obama is both an enigma and a pain in the posterior. Just ask the Reverends Jesse L. Jackson and Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters, Andrew Young, Donna Brazile and Julian Bond.

They don’t know what to do with him.

Finally, the Daily Herald has some poll results that show a quarter of the American public would be “angry or upset” if a woman was elected president.

Respondents were asked how many out of a list of five statements made them angry. The topics were rising gas prices, pro athletes making millions, requiring seat-belt use, large companies polluting the environment and a woman serving as president.

The survey found 26 percent said they’d be angry or upset about a female president. The surprise was that the level of unease at a female leader cut across gender, income, geographical and education lines.

“We expected to find people were lying (in past polls). And we also expected to find some groups lied more than others. But that really wasn’t the case,” Streb said.

While the survey didn’t ask the related question of whether people would be angry about a black man as president, Streb suggests “the same theory applies.”

I’ll post the full results if I can find them.