Obama plans general election team

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama is quietly planning to take over the Democratic National Committee and assemble a multistate team for the general election, the latest sign that he is putting rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and the nomination fight behind him.

Top Obama organizer Paul Tewes is in discussions to run the party, several Democratic officials said Tuesday.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said no final decisions have been made on general election plans and that such decisions would be premature with Obama yet to clinch the nomination.

Tewes is one of the leading architects of Obama's success in the marathon Democratic primary race. He engineered Obama's critical victory in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, which gave Obama the upper hand and Clinton was never able to fully overcome.

DNC executive director Tom McMahon and DNC political director Dave Boundy traveled to Chicago last week to meet with Tewes and other campaign officials to discuss merging efforts. The party officials have held similar meetings with Clinton campaign officials and last week got an agreement with both campaigns to start raising money that will benefit the eventual nominee.

The Obama campaign also is in discussions with staffers who will be dispatched to various swing states, but holding off on making announcements until Obama has won the nomination. Officials who spoke to The Associated Press about the discussions insisted on anonymity because the campaign wanted to keep the deliberations quiet.

Obama needs 2,026 delegates to clinch the nomination, and he moved within 100 of that goal after contests in Kentucky and Oregon Tuesday. Clinton was more than 250 delegates back.

The staffing decisions are a natural progression for Obama, who still is engaged in a primary campaign while Republican candidate John McCain has been free to prepare his general election team for months. Obama will have to hit the ground running to make up for lost time when, as expected, he dispatches Clinton.

Democratic and Republican nominees traditionally install loyalists at their party committees even though it is technically headed by its chairman _ in this case Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and a presidential candidate four years ago.

McCain has put his own team at the Republican National Committee to operate a Victory Fund Committee that is corralling top GOP donors and plotting strategy for the general election. McCain took the steps shortly after locking up the nomination after primary wins on March 4.

But Obama can't afford to move too quickly toward the general election, or he will risk alienating Clinton supporters who are already emotional about the likelihood of their chosen candidate's closely fought defeat.

There have been other steps toward the Democratic nomination. Obama has been campaigning in general election battleground states. Fundraisers for the two campaigns have held quiet discussions on working together in the fall campaign. And Obama's campaign reached out to former Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle about joining forces for the general election, although several other top Clinton staffers said they have not been contacted.

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On the Net:

http://www.barackobama.com

Comments

[Grizzlies]

For months Senator Clinton supporters have listened to vile, disingenuous comments about their candidate from Obama surrogates and Obama zombies. NOT ONLY DO YOU DISMISS OUR CANDIDATE, YOU DISMISS ENTIRE STATES THAT VOTE FOR HER!! That is not the way to unify this party. WE may share some common views, but we can also THINK FOR OURSELVES!! DAY BY DAY inflammatory comments are hurled at Clinton by Obama supporters in the misguided belief that your insults will cause us to close ranks before this contest is over. MICHIGAN,FLORIDA,MONTANA,SOUTH DAKOTA ,,AND YES ,EVEN PUERTO RICO DO COUNT.

[Yohomegirl]

I will vote for the candidate that is intelligent enough to see that THE candidate has been(

[Yohomegirl]

(cont) chosen. Note past tesne in the use of the word 'has'.

[Liberoservative]

My letter to the DNC
Done as well:
My comment:
Please for the love of God stop this Primary. I was watching Clinton's speech in Boca Raton today and was almost physically ill listening to her bash Obama. I also watched Obama's speech in Tampa, what little part I could.. and even when he had a chance to mention her in a negative light, i.e. the gas tax, he didn't go there. He praised her profusely and he kept on point against McCain. I have no idea why you are allowing her to continue to denigrate the best presidential candidate we have had in my lifetime of 52 years.. and, yes, I think that he's even better than JFK (blasphemy)... Please allow this man to get on to the GE and let people know him for who he is. Instead, you are letting a rogue Democrat run around like a nut and cut him down over and over...
Thank you DNC....
PS. Once Obama is officially named the Nominee, you will get my campaign donations. Until then, they are going to his campaign. posted 05/21/2008 at 15:13:44

[hillarysupporter]

Please don't call his patronizing behavior "praise". After a year of Obama, his campaign and
his mean-spirited supporters' smear campaigns and rumors, he's got to be kidding if he thinks
anyone actually believes what he's saying.

[ApolloniaCreed]

What do you think about this popular vote farce she is spewing; comparing her own party to Zimbabwe/Mugabe?! Are you serious? ...nevermind, you can't be...

[DMW1]

And you would complain just as much, if not more, if he had been negative. It's like listening to Hillary - "Heads I win, tails you lose!"

[EvoMan]

What did you think about her Bosnia lies. Is even mentioning them a smear?

What do you think about her agreeing to the rules regarding Michigan and Florida...until she started to lose? Is pointing this out a smear?

Mean spirited? How about truth.

[Chapmanp2]

Excellent strategy...
I like it.

[Liberoservative]

Wow.. McCain's adivisor resigns because he doesn't want to work against Obama! A Repub with a conscience...
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/21/mccain-adviser-resigns-doesn%e2%80%99t-want-to-work-against-obama/#comments

[Grannysue]

Too bad that Obama cannot can some of his class and give it too Hillary, because she has none!

[Dalpine]

It's sad to see rational women reduced to bitter sore losers who are now being manipulated into believing that cheating and damaging the party is good.
Democrats should protest against Hillary trying to weaken Democrats for the GE.

[LeftLeanWing]

can't do that now; because it would alienate Hillary supporters; but if her actions can be pointed to a major reason why Obama loses the GE; Then they should give her a whoop-ass beat down (figuratively speaking) by promoting and grooming other women within the Party to Top Senate positions and committees.

[hillarysupporter]

If Obama loses, its absolutely his fault and no one else's. He's had the entire media,
Kennedy, Oprah, etc., and more money than any campaign in history!
In fact, the question is, even with all of the above, why is he having so much trouble closing? He knows he can't win the election in November without Clinton's voters, either.

[EvoMan]

And, of course, you totally ignore the utterly inept campaign your candidate ran. How do you feel about her running the country in such a manner?

[EvoMan]

Bullshit. If she wants to support the Democratic nominee, she'll stop trying to damage him. Now.

[JJeff88]

Work toward merging groups nationally is a good sign. But - if implemented effectively - where this sort of effort will be most helpful will be at the state and local level.

None other than Mike Dukakis pointed out that one thing that can really help Sen. Obama among rural, blue collar and older voters are folks already established in their neighborhoods and local communities who can knock on doors, pick up the phone and vouch for Sen. Obama's commitment to helping them.

For this to happen, the campaign organization will have to meet with local Democrats to work out common strategy. This does not always go swimmingly. (the candidate's campaign people often feel they know what won for their candidate to get him nominated. The state and local organization Democrats feel they they know best what works for their constituencies and where the bodies are buried).

It will be a challenge and test of a really good campaign organization that has proved to be extremely savvy at the national level to make things operate effectively and harmoniously on the ground for the general election.

[Liberoservative]

You have no idea how large his grass roots organizers are..... just do one look at what South Carolina is doing... and, since I am a registered Missouri voter because I am AD in SC... I am stirring up hope in my home state with my friends..... This is going to happen.... I don't think that the racist Dems or Repubs are large enough to stop us.... WE CAN DOTHIS...... with all of your participation... yah.. it takes some time out of your lives... but don't you get the little voice in your head..."This is the right thing to do"....

[SpoxLogic]

Luckily, Obama's camp knows how to work with the locals. This is how he's been running his campaign. His local people have everything set up and then when he comes in, they mesh and hit the ground running.

There may be a fe whiccups, but I think it will hum along quite nicely!

[GravitonX]

Look. If Hillary doesn't strongly endorse Obama, we'll just get former-Clinton operatives who support Obama to do it.

Let's do what we do best.....grassroots, baby!

[useyourbrain]

who do you think is running his campaign now?

[starrianna]

John McCain.

[preatorius]

It is not a secret anymore, thanks!

[dapperd72]

Unfortunately, the results in Kentucky & West Virginia reflect what George Carlin described as the "intelligence level of the American gene pool" on his "What Am I Doing In New Jersey?" album. He emphasized that people who like to reenact Civil War battles should use live ammunition because they "just might raise the intelligence level of the American gene pool!" When I see interviews with white voters who say they won't vote for Obama because they believe he's a Muslim or that he's black, it reminds me of all that's wrong with this country. The same people who refuse to vote for a non-white or non-Christian for President (though Obama is Christian anyhow) are those who oppose flag-burning, insist one must wear a flag-lapel pin to be patriotic, support war, hunting, the death penalty, gun "rights" and agribusiness, and call abortion "murder" if a woman wants to control her reproductive cycle. These are the same ignorant neo-KKK hypocrites who call Michelle Obama "unpatriotic" because there were times in her life when she wasn't necessarily proud of her country. Anyone in this nation who has always been proud of our nation's history either has a few screws loose or more likely has a moral deficit (to be very diplomatic). I'm sure the millions of Native Americans whose ancestors were murdered by military troops, along with other non-whites and nonhuman animals who are/were enslaved as SOP in our culture, would celebrate with equal jingoistic fervor.

[useyourbrain]

but it's a reality and railing against it won't change it....time, exposure and experience to other people and cultures will do that. you see that in the big cities. it's also a generational thing that is changing over time.

it IS a major problem for Obama in the general election and he probably will lose because in spite of the pundits and pollsters and talking heads of the MSM who say Obama has transcended race, he may have transcended it, a lot of America has not.

[biglover]

dapperd72 - i agree and I agree with Carlin. Despite what aaronburr has to say below.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck - it's a duck

[aaronburr]

"I'm sure the millions of Native Americans whose ancestors were murdered by military troops, along with other non-whites and nonhuman animals who are/were enslaved as SOP in our culture, would celebrate with equal jingoistic fervor."


Wow, even the "non-human animals" hate us! Thank God they can't vote. Your kind of elitist, sneering condescension where you assign bad intentions and ignorance to large blocks of Americans (who you have obviously never met) just because they dare to not vote according to your agenda - instead of blaming the fact that maybe, just maybe, for whatever reason, your candidate's message was not persuasive enough to win their vote - is the kind of arrogance that could ultimately end up costing Obama the election. He and his supporters - like you I presume - are going to need to persuade, not call those who don't agree with them names.

[Tropiholic]

aaronburr and your arrogant selective sanctimony is very unbecoming. Some people just love to read their own posts or hear themselves talk. Most everyone else finds them obnoxious and offensive.

[santamonica39]

elistist? Because we think Americans have done some terrible things. Slavery, genocide against native americans, putting Japanese AMERICANS in concentration camps, illegal invasions of sovereign nations. The list goes on. I love my country, but anyone who is truly proud of ALL we've done is either an idiot or morally bankrupt.

[Hare]

just maybe, for whatever reason,
your candidate's message was not persuasive enough to win their vote -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

What message is persuasive enough? Please elaborate

[SanityNowPlease]

there isn't one and aaronburr knows this.

[madhatter123]

Well said, dapper d.

[CookieWrites]

Obama is arrogant to take this action since he is not the nominee at this time. All this proves is that the idiot Howard Dean has been biased all along not to mention how he blew it in cutting Florida and Michigan out of the race.
The race is not over until it is over.

[santamonica39]

actually he is the nominee. Everyone knows it but Clinton. I'm sure all you republicans would love for Obama to wait until August to put together is GE campaign, but he's not that stupid and neither is Howard Dean.

[bigbingtheory]

Just like I've been saying for 2 months now, Hillary can only overtake Obama by subverting the pledged delgate count. Most people with a brain understand this would be disastorous. His lead has only grown over these 2 months.
For the last time, FL and MI wasn't just Howard Dean's call. All the candidates pledged and wagreed that these delegates would not ocunt.
The race is over and Obama is being a far more gracious winner to Hillary than she is a loser to him.

[butterworth]

Hillary Clinton has done her supporters a great disservice, giving them false belief that "the race is not over", continuing to ask them for money, and and trying to get them emotionally invested in a lost campaign. For me, it is further proof that she is divisive and dishonest. For a long time, she has been abetted by the media who pitched the false idea of a "close race" simply for ratings and money. It's extremely sad that voters were manipulated in this way.

[Pammy1151]

Cookie I am taking for granted that you are a woman. I also hope that you do not have any children. If you did you would have taught them what is fair and not to tell tales. I think why so many Obama supporters have problem with Hillary supporters is because most of you are just stubborn. Obama is going to be the nominee. It is time to get on board the winning team and stop playing the role of a VICTIM. It didn't work for Hillary during the campaign except with a certain group of woman that act the same way she does and I find it sad that her supporters are all falling into the same VICTIM place. I hope you think more of yourself and of others around you.

[olivia]

There is an arrogant person in this campaign and it is not Obama.

[GravitonX]

Hillary can argue and nag us til she's blue in the face.

It's not going to change.

It's over.

[preatorius]

I have news for you. It is over.

[Arbos]