As Obama and the Democrats attempt to save their governing majority this fall, a majority that an unprecedented number of Americans helped them to build, I felt compelled to address my version of what happened to our movement for Change. The fact that the movement is not clearly pushing behind Obama at this moment in time, for those of us who worked on the campaign, is essentially the elephant in the room. It has been brought up to the president directly at backyard gatherings and town hall meetings and it has certainly been discussed behind closed doors for some of us, since election day. Something indeed happened here and in order to restore it, we must start examining it out in the open.
I worked in Obama's Chicago headquarters in the New Media department on his in-house video team. We got a lot of attention for what we did and looking back now, I know it was deserved. I came to the campaign after working for a decade as an objective journalist and that is how I'm going to approach this story. Before Obama, I had never endorsed a candidate. I believed that objectivity was both honorable and necessary as a journalist if you were to be trusted by all sides -- but somehow in July of 2008, for the first time in my life I believed in something so strongly I found myself quitting my paying job and cushy life in San Francisco during uncertain economic times and driving to Chicago in 3 days. I was lucky to have been invited and like many others I did want to participate in this historic moment--but also felt like there was a good chance Obama might not win, with the alternative taking our country over a cliff and I had to do more than something- everything.
Over the past two years, like many who disrupted their lives for this campaign, my life is still all over the place -- literally, my possessions can be found in San Francisco, LA, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Omaha Toledo and of course, Washington, DC -- as I have been trying in my own ways to carry out some of the vision we felt we had. I'm not complaining. Just ask anyone whose couch I've slept on in the last two years--I feel honored to be in this position and that's what still propels me when I'd like to be home already.
Let me first start off by saying that I won't name any names here. What happened was not the work of one person, or a group of people, or even an ideology. At least, I don't think that it was, even if some people actually believe the movement died at the stroke of a few purposeful hands (which some do). The focus on names and blames really doesn't serve the purpose of truly understanding what happened here- which is my goal. Further, while I'm sure I'm going to make enemies by writing this--I truly love all the people I worked with on the New Media team and would have each and everyone one of their backs in a knife fight.
What Was This New Media?
Here's why. While working in Chicago New Media--the much ballyhooed, start-up technology arm of the Obama campaign, may not have been one of the happiest times of my life--I have never and possibly may never be part of something that worked so well again. The whole actually was greater than the sum of our parts--'online' wasn't a mystery there--we actually made the internet work on all its cylinders. Not only was every single person well-intentioned and giving their all towards something greater than themselves, there was raw genius too--the results were unquestionable. And herding that amount of talent into the same room at sub-market prices would be very hard to do again--if ever.
Lets start with the brass tacks shall we? In order to have a successful new media campaign, or lets say any sort of movement towards anything you find in life, it can be boiled down to two very basic ingredients:
The intricate steps that lead up to those very basic things are much more complicated. There are questions to be asked "Where is this energy located?" "What can I say to direct it?" & "Where should it inevitably go?" -- and there are decisions to be made. While Obama himself garnered some natural gravitas, we were the nerds, artists and filmmakers who organized it so millions more could join the ride.
The Obama New Media team did more than raise record amounts of money and channel an unprecedented effort to get out the vote for a black man with a funny name -- somehow, we seemed to make really good decisions with the energy we had. If we had no energy, we would have had no movement -- but without all the organization to channel that energy -- I think we are all confident, not only would Barack Obama not have been elected president, he may not have even gotten the nomination.
We had built up a list of supporters through BarrackObama.com and all of the neighbor to neighbor door knocking that was supposed to be generationally game changing(and it still probably is). Approximately 1 in every 100 people in the US population donated to the campaign through our site -- often in small denominations. For once in MY LIFE, everyone surrounding me, 24 hours a day, felt like they were part of something greater than themselves and I quite honestly wanted to continue to be part of that community and the world Obama had envisioned. I wasn't cynical anymore.
Our campaign tried its best to take the high road -- the 'war room' era of the attack ads was crying its death knell -- in place of the Obama era which was one of going home, doing your homework, going block by block and nerding the fucker out.
So where did all of this energy go?
The point of departure--and I doubt anyone's left who honestly thinks the energy is still here at those levels--differs depending on who you talk to and their perspective.
Wednesday, November 5th : Stick With Me
For me, you have to look back to the rest of the week after we won the campaign. The day after the election at 11AM after we partied most of the night, we all gathered at the office after we were told Obama might be there in person -- he wasn't. He did call in and genuinely thanked us for our efforts. I think I lost count of how many times he said he wanted to take us all with him and it was a nationwide call. He directed specific people to make sure we all had a place to go -- and by the end of the day, those who were paid received several emails explaining how to apply to get jobs inside the administration.
Meanwhile, and this had been happening for some time already -- private meetings were being held throughout the offices. Some folks were quietly already on their way to Washington -- while most of us still had hangovers. This made sense, we were soon to be in charge of the government and there was a lot of work to do.
I find it incredibly hard to believe that people forget just how bad things were in November of 2008. People quite frankly were wondering what might come after capitalism. We had a new president who had to prove that he was in control of the situation. This theme would echo throughout the coming months and is one that I firmly believed in and still do. There was hope and change -- and then there were bread lines. Making sure the lights were still on in the US was the first priority.
One group which was largely left off the email list for jobs were our volunteers coast to coast, and in our office. They were largely the FORCE behind our efforts and many of them were older and more experienced than some of those who were paid, but they just came anyway and dealt with it. All of them deserved pay, but despite our fundraising totals, we had huge costs running a 50 state campaign and there wasn't that much to go around. There were situations were people just left what they were doing and came -- putting it all on their credit cards. I made about $200 a week -- not much -- but compared to these people, I was living rich. One of my friends called this the "all out insanity of the moment", evidence that our times had pushed people that far -- and we would not have Barrack Obama as president without them. They were our heart and soul.
Thursday, November 6: Grab Your Piece of History
By Thursday, we all showed up to the office, trying to act like there was something to do, but there really wasn't. Sure, there was stuff to organize for posterity and for the 2012 re-election, but who really wanted to do that? This day was marked with mad-dash mobs raiding the stashes of historic posters that people would find behind desks.
Meanwhile, the back door meetings continued -- while a lot of us who were still exhausted and stunned from what had just happened were trying to figure out what was going to happen next. One thing's for sure, the mood had changed. We were all in it together, now there was a sense that everyone was in it for themselves. People kept their cards close to their chest, if they weren't 'tapped' to go to the transition, they didn't want to talk about it. If they were, they didn't want to talk about it either because who knows -- someone might steal it from them.
It was at this point that I had decided I needed to sleep for a couple of years and maybe going into government just wasn't for me. It started to feel less like a cause and more like the other awfully competitive places I've had worked at throughout my twenties that I couldn't stomach having anything to do with anymore. In a sense, it started to get a little ugly.
Friday, November 7: The Cold Streets of Chicago
This was our last day in the Chicago offices. In what had been our world for who knows how long at this point -- the posters were coming down and things were starting to get taken apart. Towards the end of the day...after one last teary eyed and hug filed FIRED UP and READY TO GO chant, led by one of our leaders and another brief speech about our futures in general, the last of us were escorted out by security with our little boxes of trinkets -- one guy commented that it felt like the day Bear Stearns closed.
A few of us, not knowing what to do next -- in life, met at Starbucks across the street on that snowy day -- trying to protect our historic posters and signs from the weather. My friend Max gave one of his as a tip to our barista -- that's the kind of guy he is. After 30 minutes of getting there -- we all looked at each other, didn't have much more to say and scrammed -- I later saw Schenectady, NY and realized this was probably one of the most depressing days of my entire life.
What was happening here -- is the deconstruction of the one thing that was most impressive about the Barrack Obama campaign -- how accessible it felt to just about anyone who wanted to be a part of it. N that we actually had to govern, the masses were quietly and painfully directionless -- unlike election night, it was cold outside too.
The Transition: Winter of Discontent
When I returned back to my hometown of Toledo, OH, I can recall sitting in my parents house thinking about just how frigid that November and December was. If there's one thing Toledo does better than most places it's a recession -- that place has been going out of business since before I was born. Things were downright scary -- except for one thing -- Obama had somehow won the presidency. A new day would dawn in January.
Everyone I knew believed it even if they didn't vote for the guy. A new day did dawn, but unfortunately, all the way up to the inauguration no one knew who was in charge of that valuable list of supporters we had compiled -- who had the keys to BarackObama.com? We wanted to continue on doing what we were doing -- people had been doing this job for years, mind you -- some straight out of college knew of nothing else -- but no one was in charge of the list. We were waiting for a signal.
There were some ad hoc meetings, where different groups tried to figure out how to keep the momentum alive on BarackObama.com with ideas ranging from regular e-town hall meetings to house parties centered around educating people on different types of legislation -- to at least keep up a status quo, but not much came from them because who was in charge ? This was the first time a lot of other people started to know something was wrong, but since so many were still trying hard to be a part of the movement or the government no one felt comfortable saying anything out loud. In what really appeared to be a power vacuum, there was no strong voice who spoke out about what was happening to the most active members in our movement -- most likely because we were all unemployed and thought someone might be on it.
For the rest of the country, you may not have noticed anything was wrong until August of 2009 -- that's when crazy people started ambushing town hall meetings on health care spreading lies and deafening out reason on one of the most important legislative matters of our time.
We were getting out-organized by AM-talk radio when a year ago we had people with iPhone applications reminding people about supporting gatherings in their immediate areas. Obama was criticized for giving too many speeches at this point that weren't really having much of an effect on things. From my point of view, a man who a year earlier had spoke before record mobs, stood alone. Hypothetical Death panels were losing out to the real life pre-existing condition firing squads from which no matter what party you vote for, there's not a person in this country who doesn't know someone who's been affected. More on that later...
Inauguration: Which Ball You Going To?
The inauguration of Barrack Obama is something I will never forget. In terms of the movement and the New Media department, some more things were starting to take form. First, there were the tickets to the inauguration and the concern about whether or not we'd even be invited to get them. I decided I was going no matter what -- and then a few weeks beforehand an email did come. Unfortunately, once again, the interns/volunteers were left out. Some of us helped as much as we could to get as many tickets out to as many people we knew as possible, but mostly to the ceremony itself -- there just weren't many extras.
For those of us on the purple line of doom who had tickets -- well that's another story. Most of the people in that line didn't get in at all after being misinformed the entire morning about a clogged entrance. Some of us got a tip about a secret entrance with no line -- this is the most accurate metaphor I've got about how our government actually operates. There's always a way in, but the obvious one is almost always clogged and filled with people outside sending you in the wrong directions.
The ticket disbursement policy and the inaugural balls attended by the newcomers with fame and fortune started to reinforce the feeling that the government was as it had always been. Separate. Guarded. You needed friends to 'get in'. That wasn't something that would have been written about the campaign.
Behind the scenes, there were quite a few people who had not yet received a call from anyone or really had solid interview prospects, but they moved to DC anyway on a HOPE, a dream and in a lot of cases, fumes in their bank accounts. Some of them even shared apartments together. Since our financial markets were in shambles, people were coming from everywhere to DC because quite frankly the lights were still on there. Finding a reasonable apartment, let alone a couch to sleep on for a couple of weeks was almost impossible.
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He spent too much time trying to get Republicans on board who were NEVER going to vote with him and he compromised for ZERO reason
He needs to go full force for his agenda and take no prisoners
"Was the Obama campaign Like A Pyramid Scheme?
after reading this article , I can only nod yes .
What did you expect?
But I'm old enough to have kept my expectations reasonable, and was informed enough to realize that I was voting for a Center-Left pragmatist.
Not a Liberal "true-believer".
The GOP's notion that it feels that it has the right to run the nation---as society---the way it wants to REGARDLESS of the outcome of anything as mundane as "elections". \
Despite all the GOP's rhetoric, they don't give a rat's backside about democracy or the process of governing....unless it is giving them what they want...and when it isn't, they are perfectly content to BREAK it. So that no one else can run it either.
As an Independent not happy with either party....
It was, but that window of opportunity has been closed I am afraid. Today it's all about personal responsibility and clawing your way to the top over the bodies of your fellow citizens.
The GOP and the teaparty have the floor and they can scream louder than the rest of us. If this administration had just focussed on financial reform quickly and forcefully from the beginning, things might be different.
The economy would be in even worse shape than it is right now.
Because the uncertainty that a major reform effort would have created, in a finance sector already reeling from one of the worst catastrophes in nearly a century would have amplified the panic that meltdown in 2008 created.
You would have likely seen the Dow plumet to lows not seen since the 1970s...
In other words--you got conned and you're sad and disappointed--but still willing to put your heart and soul into the BHO Experiement IF THEY WOULD JUST LET YOU BACK IN?
That Administration doesn't even REMEMBER YOU, kid.
Frankly I am just ordinary voter.
I drive with my 2008 sticker
I talk to people I know,
sometimes to those, whom I don't know
I am explaining
and I am sending donations.
i do not excet tickets.
I know, that my vote is among those 45% that stay as a stone for our president in every poll.
I have a hope.
We will get change.
..... Maybe because we do not expect
tickets....
Which Begs the Question: "Who is Obama's Boss?" & "Does that make him a Closet Right-Winger?"