The Obama Disconnect: A Spirited Discussion

The past week or so, the Personal Democracy Forum web site published a series of fascinating articles that sparked a wide-ranging discussion on Organizing for America, the community-organizing wing of Obama's electoral operation that propelled him to victory in 2008.

Micah Sifry, in "The Obama Disconnect: What Happens When Myth Meets Reality," argues:

But the question raised by Plouffe's book is, given the grassroots base he helped develop in support of Obama and how powerful it became by the fall of 2008 (raising $150 million in the month of September alone, including more than $10 million the night of Sarah Palin's acceptance speech), why he didn't do more to keep that muscular organization going into Obama's presidency? To put it another way, why did Plouffe discount his own grassroots strategy in favor of the dusty old playbook used by White House insiders for decades? Why wasn't more done to extend that sense of ownership meaningfully into the life of the Administration? If you could trust your volunteers to carry the campaign in all sorts of important ways, why not also give them a real say in how they could shake up Washington?

The answer, ultimately, is that Plouffe and the rest of Obama's leadership team, wasn't really interested in grassroots empowerment. Instead, they think they've invented a 21st century version of list-building, and to some degree they're right. (It's for that reason that I think of the Obama campaign as the first 21st century top-down campaign, while McCain's was the last 20th century top-down version). For Plouffe, the gigantic Obama email list, its millions of donors and its vibrant online social network were essentially a new kind of top-down broadcast system, one even better than the old TV-dominated system.

His article generated quite a bit of controversy which resulted in an interesting set of follow-up articles and a flurry of comments and response blog posts:

The Obama Disconnect: What Could Have Been?

Responding to Karoli About Hope, Cynicism and the Obama Disconnect

One More Response to Karoli on the Obama Disconnect

The Right Gets the Obama Disconnect Wrong

Saul Alinsky on Barack Obama and OFA, via Ralph Benko

Respect, Empower, Include, Unfriend? The Story of One Disillusioned Obama Organizer

So You Want to be an Engaged Citizen

This compilation of resources combine my interests in new media technology and citizen-centered political advocacy. Reading about, exploring, and using these resources have been educational to me in learning how to be an effective advocate, how best to harness the latent power of ordinary citizens for social and political change, and what tools are available on the Internet to help an individual be an active, engaged citizen.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive. It is a compilation of what I think are the best resources available from reputable organizations which deal with issues and politicians in a non-partisan way and which seek to promote greater transparency from the government and elected officials.

Online Resources for Researching Information about the Government

Open Congress

OpenCongress brings together official government data with news coverage, blog posts, public comments, and more to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress. Small groups of political insiders and lobbyists already know what's really going on in Congress. Now, everyone can be an insider.

Show Us the Data


Show Us the Data: Most Wanted Government Documents is collecting examples of government documents and data that are unclassified and should be easily available to the public online, but are not.

Open Secrets: Center for Responsive Politics

OpenSecrets.org is the nation’s premier independent website tracking the influence of money on U.S. politics, and how that money affects policy and citizens’ lives.

OpenCRS: Congressional Research Reports

Taxpayers spend over $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a "think tank" that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. Yet, these reports are not made available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports.

Online Resources On Elected Officials and for Contacting People in Government

The White House: Office of Public Engagement

The Office of Public Engagement creates and coordinates opportunities for direct dialogue between the Obama Administration and the American public, while bringing new voices to the table and ensuring that everyone can participate and inform the work of the President.

Project Vote Smart


Project Vote Smart provides detailed information – biographical information, campaign finances, interest groups ratings, issue positions, and public statements – on elected officials including the President, members of Congress, state officials and leadership in state legislatures.

GovLuv

GovLuv uses Twitter to connect you instantly with your representatives in government.

General Sources of Information that Relate to Citizen Advocacy

Sunlight Foundation Insanely Useful Web sites

The Sunlight Foundation was founded in 2006 with the non-partisan mission of using the revolutionary power of the Internet to make information about Congress and the federal government more meaningfully accessible to citizens.

Personal Democracy Forum

Blog focusing on the latest news and information on the intersection between technology and politics.

Book Recommendation

The Citizen's Guide to Lobbying Congress

Exactly what the title says it is. A handy, practical guide for citizens to lobby their Congressional representatives.

The Future of the 50-State Strategy

I just got this email from the organization Democracy for America.

What a great week, right? Finally, we have a President intent on getting America back on track and he hasn't waited a single day to get started.

But why can't we say the same thing about his leadership of the Democratic Party?

The 50 State Strategy will go down as one of the most successful long-term programs the DNC has ever implemented, providing resources for increasing voter registration, maintaining a national voter file available to local parties, developing leaders at all levels of office, and employing official DNC staff in every state.

This week, word leaked from Washington that the DNC might return to the short-sighted policies of the past and only focus real resources on swing states in preparation for the next Presidential election.

If it ain't broke, don't break it. We must step up our aggressive campaign to immediately reinstate the 50 State Strategy...

Yesterday, local DFA members delivered our "Reinstate the 50 State Strategy" petition with signatures and comments representing over one million DFA members nationwide.

We can't sit idle and wait for a response. Local elections for Mayors, City Councils and School Boards are coming up fast. Congressional elections in 2010 will need the grassroots groundwork we lay right now. And in 2012, Barack will need a strong people-powered Democratic Party nationwide.

Since President Obama appointed Gov. Tim Kaine to be the new Chair of the DNC, both Barack and Tim have said many nice words about the 50 State Strategy. But praise is not action and over 200 organizers have been let go with no announced plan to replace them.

Keep up the pressure and make sure Gov. Kaine understands that if it ain't broke, don't break it.

Apparently the Democratic Party is seriously considering doing away with the highly successful 50-State Strategy for political and community organizing and going back to the short-sighted focus on swing states as its main political strategy. This relates to an issue percolating late last year where 200 local community organizers were fired by the DNC after Howard Dean stepped down as DNC chair.

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.

Obama Finally Answers Republican Belittling Of Community Organizers

But he should be more forceful in pointing out the amount of vitriol that Republicans hurled towards community organizers.

Republicans Belittle Community Organizers

Republicans enjoyed a hate fest last night, spending a lot of time trashing grassroots community organizing. Yet they claim to understand America at the grassroots level. This was one of the best examples that i've seen that says plainly that they don't get it.

This nation was built on Community organizing.

After all of these months of the Republicans and their lap dogs in the media painting Barack Obama as an elitist... you couldn't get more elitist than the Republicans were at their Convention. Keep in mind... the theme for that particular day was "prosperity"... (Prosperity for them). Who were the speakers? Corporate elites. After the rich CEO's finished speaking...Mike Huckabee gave his speech. Huckabee, in a roundabout way, suggested that Americans who are struggling were whiners who were waiting for the Government to rescue them.
And they capped the night off with an attack on grassroots community organizing, with Giuliani and Palin.

Amazing!

Roland Martin struck back with a great response:



The Obama camp issued a response shortly after

Hopefully Obama will speak on this later in the week.

Unbelievable!

Of course, the speeches focused on attacking Obama rather than talking about their record over the past 8 years...or laying out a detailed plan for how they would deal with healthcare, jobs, and the issues that voters are most concerned about.

They stuck to their usual themes of war, 9/11, Terrorism, family values, scaring voters, and pushing the myth that they somehow have a monopoly on patriotism.

When will this sickness end?

How Obama Won: That $10,000/year job pays dividends

How Obama Won: That $10,000/year job pays dividends

I have listened to the likes of Pat Buchanan sneer as they call Barack Obama a ' Community Organizer'.

Well, that 'Community Organizer' just used his skills learned there, and in the trenches of Chicago Politics to defeat the most powerful Democratic Party Political Machine in 25 years.

As a reader at JJP stated:

Barack Obama did what the 'Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy' couldn't do: He beat the Clintons.

And, he learned the foundation of how to do it in the Projects on the South Side of Chicago. Obama learned, through that job, the skill of community organizing. How, when faced with an entity more powerful, that one small voice maybe can't make a difference, but joining together hundreds , then thousands of small voices brings a loud chorus that can't be ignored.

When I went to Camp Obama, we were instructed by one of the men who had taught Obama all those years ago, and this guy was a pistol. He was so on point, and made me sit back and think about what Obama was really trying to do. He was training Community Organizers to go back to their homes and find others to come to the Obama Campaign. It was definitely bottom-up organizing,, and this is how Obama was able to win. One of the articles that we were requested to read at Camp Obama was The New Republic one on Obama being influenced by Saul Alinsky. If you've not read the article, you should, because I thought it was very instructive, but also plays into the foundation of what Obama did.

In order to beat those who have 'The Establishment' on their side, you have to create your own ' Establishment'. Barack Obama had to create his own ' Organization' in every state throughout the country. And, he did, just that.

Obama also learned from his time in Chicago, that you can win in two ways:
1. Get those who have always voted to come over to your side
2. Get those who don't vote to come and vote and make sure you have enough of them to overwhelm Group #1. If you bring a voter to the dance, sure it's possible they might switch partners later on in the dance, but not before you get the dances out of them that you need.

Where did Obama learn this from? Chicago. Basically, this is the story of how Harold Washington won. There were a group of activists who thought it was time for a Black Mayor of Chicago, and they went to Harold. Harold told them: raise me this amount of money, and register this amount of voters, and then come back to talk to me. When they did, Harold kept his word, ran, and the rest is history.


An Iowa Obamacan


This has been Obama's strategy all along. It has been at the foundation of his calling for crossover voters. It was routinely sneered at by the MSM and Political Professionals, because traditionally, young people do everything but vote, and they have never seen Republicans really crossover for Democrats. When Obama said that just as there have been Reagan Democrats, he wanted there to be Obama Republicans - what Democrat has ever said that in the past 20 years? It's a new way of thinking. It's a new map that Obama wants to create, and he's slamming right up against the conventional political wisdom of the past 20 years.

Though I loathed it, I will admit that Barack Obama benefitted in one way from a long primary season: he was able to build an organization, from the ground up, in all 50 states. He can attempt to compete in places where Democrats used to just give up to the Republicans without a second thought. I believe this is a headstart of huge proportions for him over John McCain.

And, just to think...he learned how to do it in the Projects on the South Side of Chicago.