Obama's 2012 Campaign Cavalry Takes Shape

[Pirate Smile]

Obama's 2012 Campaign Cavalry Takes Shape



WASHINGTON -- In a bare-bones room on the second floor of an office building blocks away from the Capitol lies one of the more influential political operations in Washington D.C.
Roughly forty staffers sit along white tables in the room, only a handful of whom even the biggest political junkies would know by name. They work in relative silence, staring into one the two computer monitors in front of them, headphones covering their ears. On the walls are mounted a dozen 42-inch televisions turned to one of the three major cable news networks. Pipes are exposed in the ceiling above and the cement floor below has no carpeting, revealing painted instructions for future movers. Off to the side, a server gives off a heated, humming sound.

It is in that server that the one of the largest collections of campaign-related video footage will soon to be stored. American Bridge 21st Century is a relatively new Democratic operation -- conceived by David Brock, the founder of the highly successful progressive media tracking organization Media Matters, and run by former high-ranking Hill and campaign staffers -- but its ambitions, as exemplified by plans for that server, are far-reaching: The group aims to redefine the art of opposition politics.
"I think I can do this better," Bradley Beychok, American Bridge's campaign director recalled Brock telling him just before Beychok came onboard. "I think I can do this smarter. I think I can do this on a larger scale."

As the 2012 campaign gears up, outside groups like American Bridge are indeed working on a larger scale, certainly when viewed in the context of recent Democratic Party history. In 2008, the Obama campaign urged donors to funnel their contributions straight into their coffers -- thereby depriving other organizations of desperately needed funds -- but there have been no such directives this cycle. When two high-ranking White House officials set off to start a group of their own, no one stood in their way. The result was Priorities USA and Priorities USA Action, a non-profit and super PAC hybrid.

-snip-
There are multiple components to that infrastructure, and the groups that have sprouted up during the past year have managed to carve out individual niches. American Bridge has limited its scope primarily to opposition research. The group was responsible for unearthing the highly embarrassing revelation that an autobiographical portion of Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) website lifted language from an Elizabeth Dole speech. Currently, it has 15 trackers, staffers whose sole job is to follow and tape Republican candidates, in the four main early presidential primary states and ten states where key senate elections are taking place (Nevada is the sole overlap).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/barack-obama-2012-campaign_n_1098115.html?1321486219

[msongs]

1. weak on leadership and republicans, strong on grabbing the campaign cash nt

[Skittles]

2. he gives much purtier speeches than any repuke

[pnorman]

3. "There's Not A Dime's Worth of Difference Between......"

n/t

[Skittles]

4. there's more than a dime's worth of difference

but not as much difference as most Democrats would like :(

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

16. The person you responded to is actually making fun of the two people upthread.

The phrase "there's not a dime's worth of difference" is a call-back to the 2000 campaign of Ralph Nader, who insisted that there wasn't "a dime's worth of difference" between Al Gore and George Bush. And as much as history has proven that to be so massively wrong as to create a black hole of wrongness, some people actually still subscribe to that belief. The person you responded to is reminding them how absurd that entire line of thinking is.

But hey, welcome to DU! :)

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

18. No problem. It's an easy mistake, DU has it's own lingo.

Mostly a pastiche of insults, insinuations that the other person is a paid shill, and references to bizarre or historical things that aren't obvious. :D

[pnorman]

19. sorry! I left out the sarcasm smilie!

That phrase was aimed at those knee-jerk Obanma-bashers who adorn this DU.

[secondwind]

20. I'm with you.... enough of this already.. ask Skinner to open up a new forum for

"Disenchanted Democrats".....

[BklnDem75]

5. K&R

I see the hate train has sputtered in earlier than usual.

[Pirate Smile]

6. Yep

[FrenchieCat]

7. Sometimes getting in for that first lick,

is the only thing some folks have to look forward to in their lives...

sad and lonely, but true.

[young but wise]

9. +1

[catgirl]

8. First poster is going for the world record

Always there at the ready. And usually the first. ;-)

[Number23]

12. And the Number 2 spot was very suitably taken as well

As in a literal Number 2.

[Number23]

11. Yep. Earlier and somehow even more incoherent than usual...

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. They're doing their "opposition research" as well, doncha know?

;)

[Pirate Smile]

10. kick

[Pirate Smile]

13. I hadn't heard much about David Brock's organization so I thought that was interesting.

I heard about it when he first announced it, of course, but since then...silence.

I didn't know that his organization was the one that nailed Scott Brown re the plagiarized biography.

It makes me feel a bit better to know that they are doing this.

(My little attempt to get the thread aimed back at the topic of the OP)

I'm also glad Begala is part of Priorities with Bill Burton.

edit to add - CAP & Media Matters are both awesome. CAP's twitter feed is great - @thinkprogress. They have additional topic-related Twitter handles also.

[great white snark]

21. K&R. Thank you P.S.

:kick:

[JNelson6563]

22. This is just great!

I am convinced this will benefit all working to get Dems elected and re-elected up and down the ballot.

It is telling that the Obama campaign is not into claiming all resources this time 'round. I was disappointed to see them sweep into town, set up their own operation and basically ignore the local Dem party. They were competition, basically.

Hopefully the campaign will be a little more relaxed this time in that they will at least leave some fruit on the tree for others.

Julie