DNC Remains Committed to 50 State Strategy: Just Without These Organizers?

[madfloridian]

Well, yes, that is what the DNC is saying. Remember this is Obama's DNC now since he became nominee.

This quite frankly is a bunch of bull hockey. Sorry, but let's be honest.

From Fire Dog Lake:

DNC Remains Committed to 50 State Strategy: Just Without These Organizers

Is Dean's Legacy Being Destroyed?

Seriously, that's the pushback that the DNC is floating. What? Ok, let's fish and cut bait. Inside the spin is some truth—the 50 state strategy will continue and it will continue under Obama's control, through MyBarackObama.com and his re-purposed campaign. This isn't unique to Obama, Bill Clinton did essentially the same thing, not with the 50 state strategy (there wasn't one) but in the sense that he made sure power was centralized under him. Rove, likewise, did not go through the RNC, but ran his campaigns out of the White House and kept the network primarily under his, and thus, Bush's, control.

Essentially Barack Obama already had a 50 state strategy, and it was his campaign.

As for the specific pushback, let's run through it quickly.

1) The agreement always ended this year. Yes, well, it could always be extended, too, couldn't it? Or you could just pay the organizers for a couple months while you work it out. Losing experienced organizers because you're too cheap to pay a couple months wages is penny wise, pound foolish.

2) Al Giordano is right. The 50 state strategy worked, and what this is about is Obama putting his own people into it, avoiding duplication of effort, and making sure he has control.

3) What Al doesn't say and wouldn't agree with is that it's also about taking resources away from the State parties and then making them more dependent on Obama.

None of this is necessarily evil or bad. It might even be good. Duplication of effort isn't necessarily good, and Barack did run an effective grassroots organizing project. He trusts those people more than he trusts the DNC or the State parties, and he wants centralized control.
However this is just what a number of us predicted back in May, when Obama squeezed out the independent organizations by telling the big donors not to give to them. Obama wants centralized power, under his control.

The difference. Dean's goal had been to "decentralize" and put more power in the hands of the state and local parties.

Dean : "Letting go of central control"gives activists "real power".

Letting go of central control in campaigns is what gives the electorate--particularly activists--real power. I learned this by doing it. When I first used the phrase "You have the power," I didn't at first realize the full impact of what I was saying. I meant only that Americans through working together to change America, could overcome the forces of the right wing and reassume their constitutional role in running the country.

What I didn't understand was that "You have the power" was a lot more than a rhetorical phrase. It didn't apply only to people's power to change a country, it also applied to their ability to direct a campaign.

..."From page 163:
We have to reconnect to the base.

In recent years the Democrats, in our pursuit of big dollars, have neglected the people we're there to serve. We let our connection to our base atrophy and have forgotten, as they say in politics, who brought us to the dance. In service to a falsely named "centrism," we've sidestepped every major request from labor unions, especially on including worker protections in our free-trade agreements.

That's what going on.

Centralization as it used to be. To put it simply...top down power is back.

All will be well. His campaign will become the 50 State Plan in some altered form. It will be under his control, and not bottom up.

And I will save a whole bunch of money monthly.

Thanks Howard Dean for trying to give power to the grassroots. They could have at least said thank you from the podium that night.

[madfloridian]

1. I can only imagine how it feels to be elated one day and out the next.

The letters went out to all of them today that they were terminated.

Bottom line, things are going back as they used to be.

[Eric J in MN]

2. There is still "Democracy for America."

We can support them. It was founded by Howard Dean.

http://www.democracyforamerica.com

[FrenchieCat]

3. The link you have there reads.....

"....the 50 state strategy will continue and it will continue under Obama's control, through MyBarackObama.com and his re-purposed campaign.

Essentially Barack Obama already had a 50 state strategy, and it was his campaign.

As for the specific pushback, let's run through it quickly.

1) The agreement always ended this year. Yes, well, it could always be extended, too, couldn't it?

It might even be good. Duplication of effort isn't necessarily good, and Barack did run an effective grassroots organizing project. He trusts those people more than he trusts the DNC or the State parties, and he wants centralized control.

However this is just what a number of us predicted back in May, when Obama squeezed out the independent organizations by telling the big donors not to give to them. Obama wants centralized power, under his control.

If you love and trust Obama, there's nothing wrong with that."

It wouldn't make sense for the 50 State outreach to be terminated in the sense that you are implying. It appears that it will continue in one place instead of two......and furthermore, I think that jumping the gun as to what this implies is taking a leap without the required full information.
"

[Skidmore]

4. I think Howard Dean and Obama are very much on the same page with this.

Our little county had no Democratic Party office for decades and this election we shared space with the neighboring county. We had nowhere to go before and our Central Committee hops from one restaurant to another in the county to meet. We also had the problem of the CC be loaded down with people who had been firmly entrenched since the Carter administration and who would shout new people down until they drove them out. That has changed. I welcome the change in people from the top down. The 50-state plan is still there. The election is over and the volunteers have gone back to their lives. The paid staff can focus on other aspects of a party in power. People cannot live in perpetual campaign mode. A little downtime is needed as the agenda of the new President is shaped and rolled out in DC and the nation. That is not a bad thing. The offices will reopen for the 2010 elections and the resources will be directed elsewhere in the meantime. How is that bad?

[Monk06]

5. Precisely the battle's over. Time to de-mob, return to barracks and polish the kit for

the next campaign. Don't leave your troops
wandering aimlessly in the field after the
battle is won. It leads to poor discipline
and wasted resources.

[madfloridian]

6. Of course there can be a permanent campaign, there has been the last four years.

There was staff on the ground to combine with Obama's campaign once he became the nominee.

Yes, there is a difference in the two views. If you read my post, Dean advocated de-centralizing the party, giving more power back outside of DC. Not everyone hired by the DNC under Dean was a loyalist to anyone, yet it worked.

I hear there will be fewer staff, and they will be under top down control. The power is reverting back to DC.

Of course there's a difference. I trust Obama and supported him 100%, but I have gotten very nervous since his pick of Rahm.

Yes, you can have a permanent campaign which the GOP had for years to take over the country. You get locals elected that way. It is not as intense but it is there.