The New Organizers: The People Behind Obama’s Ground Game

Click on the link to the Huffington Post to read a remarkable article by Zack Exley on the on-the-ground operations of the field organizing of the Obama campaign.

The "New Organizers" have succeeded in building what many netroots-oriented campaigners have been dreaming about for a decade. Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or "bottom-up" organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.

Win or lose, "The New Organizers" have already transformed thousands of communities—and revolutionized the way organizing itself will be understood and practiced for at least the next generation. Obama must continue to feed and lead the organization they have built—either as president or in opposition. If he doesn't, then the broader progressive movement needs to figure out how to pick this up, keep it going and spread it to all 50 states.

Full article at the Huffington Post.

Liberal Arts Dude sez:

This is the most exciting political article that I have read in a long time and really gives me hope for the future. The Obama campaign has built the foundation for an actual, bonafide, nation-wide social movement that has the potential to mobilize people and get things done in a concrete, realistic way. Kudos to the Obama campaign field staffers for this.

After the elections are over I can’t wait to see what form or forms these on-the-ground operations will take and what roles these volunteers will take on as they take the ball of citizen-powered democratic participation and run with it.