How Obama Camp Built A New Generation Of Progressive Volunteers

Inside the Obama campaign, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent generation of organizers has built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people's organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.

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.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[tel8034]

McCain and Palin ....................... Barack (The Community Organizer) Obama IS KICKING BOTH YOUR BUTTS.

The Repubs mocked the notion of community organizing ............... But the last laugh is ALWAYS the sweetest laugh.

[V4Vigilance]

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." - Sir Isaac Newton

While I appreciate this glimpse into Obama's impressive campaign operation I find it appalling and absurd Howard Dean's 2004 campaign isn't mentioned until nearly the end of the article and then only as providing a "glimpse" of the possible along with MoveOn, and the Kerry(?) and Bush(???) campaigns. The problem with comparing Obama's campaign with Kerry's is that Kerry's campaign was, by and large, being run by same pack of top-down, Beltway bozos that screwed the pooch for Clinton, Kerry and Gore. Dean's rise from the obscure former Gov. of Vermont to the front runner and leader in cash raised going into Iowa mirrors Obama's story. Sure, the DLC dominated Democratic Party structure was still powerful enough at that time to torpedo Dean's bid, but Dean's success and the ability of his grassroots supporters to get him elected Chair of the DNC basically opened the door that Obama walked through.

Bottom line: Obama's campaign owes an ENORMOUS debt to the 2004 Dean campaign and Dean's subsequent term at the DNC and the author does the party and his readers a disservice by failing to properly acknowledge that debt.

[ccmd]

a new kind of politics, a new kind of leader

[johnu1974]

to sean hannity and sarah palin, keep up all the condescending talk of obama just being a community organizer. his skills as a community organizer has led him to having a 21st century type ground game, and it will lead to obama winning close states like indiana, north carolina, and virginia.