Grassroots will not wither under Obama 2.0

[depakid]

AS BARACK OBAMA builds his administration and prepares to take office next week, his political team is planning quietly for a nationwide hiring binge that would marshal an army of full-time organisers to press the new president's agenda and lay the foundation for his re-election. The organisation, known internally as "Barack Obama 2.0", is designed to sustain a grassroots network of millions that was mobilised last year and is widely considered the country's most potent political machine.

Organisers and even Republicans say the scope of this permanent campaign structure is unprecedented for a president. People familiar with the plan say Mr Obama's team would use the network in part to pressure legislators - particularly wavering Democrats - to help him pass complex legislation on the economy, healthcare and energy.

The plan could prompt tensions with members of Congress, who are unlikely to welcome being targeted from within their own districts. Already, state Democratic officials worry it could become a competing political force focused on the president's ambitions while diminishing the needs of down-ballot Democrats.

In what would be another unprecedented step, Mr Obama's political staff is deciding whether to create a service organisation that would use the vast corps of its grassroots supporters. As described by one source, this non-profit arm would be used to help victims of natural disasters, but would do so under the Obama umbrella while continuing to build the network's email database.

<snip>

Strategists in the two main parties said the ideas being discussed would create an on-the-ground weapon for policy battles far more powerful than the speeches, news conferences and donor-targeting techniques that presidents traditionally use.

"No one's ever had these kinds of resources," said the Republican strategist Ed Rollins, who led political operations under president Ronald Reagan. "This would be the greatest political organisation ever put together, if it works."

More: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/grassroots-will-not-wither-under-obama-20/2009/01/15/1231608886377.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. It's kinda too bad Team Obama chose to make their own netroots....

rather than using the (very good) one already in place. There are reasons for why, but it's still kinda too bad.

[Fearless]

2. Seeing as though it got him elected... I don't care personally.

:shrug:

[madfloridian]

3. Yes, some journalists are questioning what will happen to the DNC

Some asking openly, some just watching. Sounds like Plouffe might be the real party head and be in charge of the Obama mailing list. Here is one journalist who was wondering about it.

"The other interesting thing here is that Plouffe is staying out of both the White House and the DNC, so that he can continue and grow Obama's own political operation. What does that mean? Is this the development of a whole separate party machinery? And what does that say about the role of the DNC? Who gets the resources, when it comes right down to it?
.
Interesting questions, don't you think?"

Does it matter? I don't know. But it sort of does away with the former chairman's growth strategy from the bottom up.

[TTUBatfan2008]

5. This is still from the bottom up, is it not?

These are regular citizens that are on Plouffe and Obama's list. It's us.

[madfloridian]

6. Well since a new group appears to be forming...

I am glad we stopped our useless donations to the DNC. All those years....

[Kaleko]

7. I don't understand these concerns.

It sounds to me that Obama will use everyone already working in grassroots efforts PLUS keep some of them full time, working on a permanent basis.

Can someone explain what may be wrong with actually GROWING the grassroots into a formidable political machine?

[BlooInBloo]

9. It's perfectly possible to have mutually exclusive choices, neither of which is wrong-in-itself.

[Kaleko]

11. I still fail to see it as an either/or proposition.

It looks like an 'also/and' deal to me where the grassroots are cultivated into a truly effective network that can push for policies we wouldn't have a chance to get through otherwise.

But maybe I'm missing something that you and others here can see.

[BlooInBloo]

14. No, you just refuse to so much as countenance the existance of an exclusionary choice.

That's fine. But it's only a statement about what you're willing to imagine - not a statement about reality.

[Kaleko]

16. Where do you see the exclusion? Who is excluded here?

I am honestly puzzled. My questions are genuine. Even if that seems hard to believe, it's true. I'm not an insider when it comes to these infights among democrats that you suggest are happening.

[madfloridian]

21. Here's my point.

We donated to Obama and supported him. But we were also more so active with the DNC for the last four years. It appears that the main group of activitism will be his email list.....which appears to say it is about the Obama campaign more than the overall party structure.

We don't get the Obama mailings anymore, because he won.

This is something rather new....to use his personal list as the group he prefers. We used to get mailings of activism from the DNC. Dean had suggested the DNC become the grassroots arm of the party, but it looks like the Obama campaign is that arm now.

Nothing inherently wrong, but not for me. The DNC chair won't even be working there full time until 2010.

I have no loyalty now to any group in the party since all are just being politically expedient for now.

[Adelante]

33. It's possible some are seeing Obama 2.0 too much about traditional politics

About winning elections. Beyond growing a formidable political machine, in that sense, it is also Obama being serious about community organizing, having ordinary citizens involved in changing the country, mobilizing public support for his legislative agenda to counterbalance congress. For this, it is critical to have staff/organizers out there organizing and it's why he keeps seeking donations even after he's won the election and why he's out stumping this very day in Ohio for his economic plan. What you say is certainly true and there is nothing wrong with it and everything right with it. I'm all for it.

:thumbsup:

[Kaleko]

34. I see.

It amounts to accusing Obama of exploiting Dean along with the existing grassroots movement he helped build.

It suggests a rift between the "old" activists and the newcomers that cannot be bridged because the veterans feel offended, overlooked, increasingly powerless. They're pouting, creating exactly the kind of psychological control-drama that Obama has been famously able to simply cut out of his organization.

[Hippo_Tron]

10. Why would he want to be at the mercy of the netroots when he could just make his own?

The Republicans outsourced their organizing to talk radio and it came back to bite them in the ass when they had to pick Sarah Palin to get them to deliver. Depending on the ideologues of your own party for organizing is best to avoid when possible.

[madfloridian]

12. Wow...comparing us to the right wing netroots.

I would like to think we stand for far more than that. :shrug:

[Occam Bandage]

20. They would say the exact same thing.

Yet another clue that the analogy is valid.

[madfloridian]

22. That is an insult to our grassroots, and I think it is meant that way.

[Occam Bandage]

25. The Republicans have grassroots as well. Their grassroots are very committed, principled,

ideologically driven people, just as ours are. Ours are better organized right now. Theirs were better organized in 2004. Ours skews young and is internet-centered; theirs skews older and is church-centered, though they have a more libertarian-leaning, young and tech-savvy grassroots as well.

[madfloridian]

26. And...they may be "principled" but they are not for the best interests of people.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. You appear to okay ignoring our grassroots because they have grassroots as well. Trust me, theirs are being nurtured not ignored.

[Occam Bandage]

27. They would say the exact same thing.

Few people are actually against "the best interests of people," it's mostly just that they have very bad ideas of what "the best interests of people" are. But they would say the same thing.

Anyway, the Republican grassroots are being nurtured, true. And ours are being nurtured as well, and to an even greater extent. What Obama has built in the 2008 campaign is the most comprehensive, widespread, powerful grassroots network ever built anywhere--and it's a network that, unlike the Republican network, is wired directly to the candidate. Obama has Dean to thank for much of what he's built, in the way that Newton has Galileo to think for much of what he discovered. The coming of Newton did not mean that Galilean physics was being discarded.

[madfloridian]

28. So the old is cast out...

while only the new remains. Those of us part of the old, not part of the email list....are not part.

And the new chair of the DNC who won't go there until 2010, is against women's rights. A negative for me.

It would have been so easy to be sure the staff was not allowed to exclude the architect of the idea.

But then Dean's in the past, he's already forgotten the grassroots, too.....and the right wing grassroots are just as important as we are..

so be it.

[Occam Bandage]

29. Nothing's cast out.

Obama's grassroots have not replaced the DNC. I expect the Obama mailing list to be added to the DNC mailing list. The DNC will, of course, take a lesser role in the party planning; that is expected with the coming of a Democratic President. The RNC became little more than an arm of the White House under Bush, just as the DNC did under Clinton.

Dean has not been any more "excluded" or "cast out" than Plouffe has. There are only so many Cabinet positions, and Dean made it very clear that he did not want to serve as anyone's toady in a subservient DNC. They will find roles in DC, as do all brilliant men with records of success.

[madfloridian]

30. Plouffe is heading the Obama mailing list group.

He is right in the middle of things.

I am talking about the actual shunning of Dean, which it was. When asked a friend of Rahm's said Dean was not even on their radar screen. That says it all right there.

He's the one who started making it possible to oppose Bush.

Funny thing, now DC has rubbed off on him and he is shrugging off the grassroots as well so very casually.

[BlooInBloo]

15. Primarily to save himself the hassle of making something that already exists...

But there are other reasons as well.

And as I mentioned, there are reasons to make his own Obamaroots.

I guess I'm the only one who can see pluses and minuses to both options.

[TTUBatfan2008]

4. Already gettin' ready for re-election...

LOL, these people are the smartest motherfuckers in the room. Always one step ahead of the competition.

[Cha]

36. You kinda have to be with the

freakin' corporatemediawhores out to bring you down.

[firedupdem]

8. He wouldn't have won without Plouffe and the team put together

to run his campaign. They need to keep it together and continue to use it.

[madfloridian]

13. I thought he got votes from the people of the party.

I thought that was how he won.

[Jim Sagle]

17. Next time he won't need us.

Just sayin'...

[EraOfResponsibility]

18. you are SO bitter, I swear lol

[madfloridian]

23. And you are right on top of everything I post to tell me how awful I am.

Good job, there.

[EraOfResponsibility]

32. don't flatter yourself, duke

just keep on playing that violin :nopity:

[madfloridian]

35. You play that violin all the time now. It's become overkill.

.

[firedupdem]

19. He wouldn't have gotten a lot of those votes without having an excellent

team out there registering voters, running a great website, knocking on doors etc.

What are you asking?

[madfloridian]

24. Then he only needs his mailing list.

Is that what you are saying?

[EraOfResponsibility]

31. Yeah. Pretty much. Next!