Like Postman, I recently received two notable political emails, one yesterday and one today, both of them timed to take some air out of Barack Obama’s appearance at Showbox SoDo tonight.

The first came yesterday from the Clinton Campaign, announcing a Who’s Who list of Washington supporters for her “Washington Steering Committee.” (Full list in the jump.) Among those on the list was “Democratic Activist” (and professional political consultant) Christian Sinderman, who this morning sent out the second email, this one more of a direct jab at Obama:

Here’s a little item from last week on Obama dissing Microsoft on the east coast while now he returns to Seattle to continue raising money from MSFT employees (and others who benefit from the Microsoft presence in our region)… Open Secrets indicates that Microsoft employees have given Obama over $37,000 in contributions.

The link is to an account of an interview Obama gave to the Boston Globe editorial board. It was described on a Globe blog thusly:

Obama also dismissed doubts that he lacks experience as a chief executive, saying launching his candidacy was akin to launching a $100 million start-up against the “Microsoft of Democratic politics” — the Clinton campaign — and raising more money than his main rival and creating a better on-the-ground organization.

Ok. So Obama dissed one of Washington’s major employers. A little bit. Maybe. (Though probably not in a way many Microsoft employees would find that disagreeable, or wrong.)

But this seems a little… Petty. It has echoes for me of that whole attack by the Clinton campaign on Obama’s alleged kindergarten writings. When that attack played badly, the campaign had to backtrack and claim it was only a joke.

I don’t know if this rises to quite that level of embarassment, but it does remind me of a joke Obama made at the Oprah-Obama event I attended in Des Moines over the weekend. Pushing his theme that the Clinton people are running a “textbook” campaign and are trapped in old tactics that he’s trying to rise above, Obama recounted the kindergarten papers incident. And then, flipping into a funny poke at Clinton’s unreleased White House records, Obama said something like:

You know, I’m going to be releasing my kindergarten papers tomorrow.

He promised detractors would find only that he’d written something innocent, something like “MOM.”

Here's the list of local Clinton supporters:

Co-Chair, Congressman Jay Inslee

Co-Chair Gary Locke, Former Governor of Washington

Co-Chair Ron Sims, King County Executive

Cathy Allen, Democratic Activist, Seattle

Stan and Alta Baer, Community Leaders, Seattle

Nancy Biery, Consultant, Seattle

Brian Bonlender, Chief of Staff, Rep. Jay Inslee, Yakima

Maura Breuger, Democratic Activist, Bainbridge Island

Larry Brown, Legislative and Political Director, IAM 751, Seattle

Katherine Cheng, Community Activist, Seattle

Martha Choe, Former Seattle City Councilmember

Rick Desimone, Former Chief of Staff, Senator Patty Murray, Tacoma

Pam Eakes, Founder, Mothers Against Violence in America, Mercer Island

Jeff Gombosky, former Spokane State Representative, and Melissa Gombosky

Jim Kainber, Former Executive Director, Washington Democratic Party, Olympia

Joe King, Former Speaker of the House, Vancouver

Sharmila Kotelawala, District Director, Rep. Jay Inslee, Mountlake Terrace

Laurie McDonald Jonsson, Business Leader

Lorrie McKay, Community Activist, Seattle

Linda Mitchell, President, National Women’s Political Caucus of Washington, Seattle

Aaron Reardon, Snohomish County Executive, Everett

George Scarola, Legislative Policy Director, League of Education Voters, Seattle

Delee Shoemaker, Former Senior Staff, Gov. Locke, Seattle

Sandra Schroeder, President, American Federation of Teachers-Washington, Tukwila

Christian Sinderman, Democratic Activist, Seattle

Whitney Williams, Democratic Activist, Seattle

Grace Yuan, Attorney, Seattle