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Obama Turns Campaign Machine Into Grass Roots Activism

Posted on: Friday, 30 January 2009, 15:18 CST

President Barack Obama has retooled his Web-powered campaign machine into a grass roots activist group to work alongside the White House in promoting his legislative agenda.

Three days before he was sworn into the White House, Obama announced to the 13 million supporters on his mailing list the transformation of “Obama for America" into a new organization, "Organizing for America.”

"You've built the largest grass roots movement in history," Obama announced through email and YouTube videos. "And the movement you've built is too important to stop growing now."

Analysts told the Associated Press the bold move has the potential to reap enormous rewards but is not without risk or controversy.

“Organizing for America is not aimed at twisting the arms of members of Congress but meant to keep activists engaged on issues such as health care, energy and the economy,” stressed David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager.

"This has obviously never been undertaken before so it's going to be a little trial and error," he added.

Simon Rosenberg, president of the progressive think tank NDN, said there really hasn't ever been anything like it before. He likened Organizing for America to former president Bill Clinton's attempt to build a grass roots pressure group on health care reform.

"Barack is not like any other candidate. He comes to Washington with more supporters and more modern tools than anyone in history. Barack is going to reinvent the presidency the way he reinvented the campaign."

However, not all are convinced that Organizing for America will not engage in congressional arm-twisting.

Soren Dayton, a former staffer on the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said many Republicans fear Obama will turn this thing on in legislative battles like health care.

"They've got a 13-million-person list," Dayton said. "They can crash the Capitol Hill phone system anytime they want.

He fears deploying it in 2010 during mid-term congressional elections is another scary thing for Republicans.

However, Democrats who get in the way of Obama's agenda may actually be the ones with the most to fear, according to Erick Erickson, editor of popular right-of-center blog RedState.com.

Erickson said Obama would likely use the group to push his own party in his direction because it's not going to work with Republicans.

“Organizing for America, which will work out of the offices of the Democratic National Committee, threatens to blur the boundaries between the political and the presidential" and could "blow up in his face," he added.

"There comes a downside if members of Congress feel like they are being bullied by the president through these means, at which point he may face a backlash within his own party."

He also suggested that even the most hardcore Obama supporters run the substantial risk of burning out over time, given the grueling primary and presidential campaign.

“Organizing for America is quite explicitly the continuation of the Obama campaign apparatus,” said Republican strategist Joshua Trevino, a co-founder of RedState.com.

"Though cloaked in the rhetoric of volunteerism and community service, it is nothing more than an attempt to maintain, organize, and direct pressure groups as needed by the Democrats at the local levels," he said.

He called the move “smart politics” from a tactical standpoint, but suggested whether or not it's good for America is another matter entirely. “Community volunteerism and service are not traditionally partisan activities in the United States.”

There is definitely a re-election campaign aspect to Organizing for America even if its scale, scope and ambition are up in the air, according to Garrett Graff, who worked for Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean in 2004.

Graff, who teaches digital politics at Georgetown University, said when you go back and look at politics 50 years from now, the 2008 race will be the dividing line between pre-Internet and post-Internet politics.

"You can no longer just turn it off the day after the election the way that we are used to in presidential campaigns," he said.

"Obama's already built a fundraising machine that is unparalleled," Graff added. "If he can double it by 2012 there's not going to be a single person in America who can catch him.

Graff wonders if there’s a Republican out there who is capable of raising a billion dollars to run against a sitting president of the United States.

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On the Net:

• White House
• Blog Update/Video
• Obama for America

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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