 Back in mid-July, I noticed Google adwords from the Obama campaign making the case that he is the antiwar nominee. This confused me. Why would a so-called antiwar Democratic base be supporting a hawkish nominee if Obama were making an antiwar case? The result was a piece called Clinton on Obama on Iraq: "But That Was Five Years Ago", in which I tracked prewar polling data on Democrats. Basically, Democrats split on the war before the invasion, and so the majority of Democrats are willing to forgive Clinton for her poor judgment if there's no compelling alternative. In essence, many of us were tricked just like Clinton was tricked.
This sparked a conversation with an Obama operative who told me that my read was off, and that 'out there' in the non-Beltway world, Obama's opposition to the war was playing well. There's an argument, put out by Obama organizers, that they are building a parallel and under-the-radar organization that is community and organizer based. Clinton, of course, has a very experienced campaign operation, and Edwards has a labor stalwart as his campaign manager.
So what's the truth? Really, I only have a few clues to go on. I've always found the culture of Democratic field operatives to be kind of irritating. When I was on the Corzine campaign, the senior field people were dismissive to other parts of the campaign, mostly abrasive to volunteers, actively laughed at the internet, and usually missed their numbers. There were constant turf fights and at the end of the day, handing out literature and doing house parties was just about respecting people, which they didn't do, and message, which we didn't really have. In 2006 during the Lieberman-Lamont primary, Lieberman brought in a 'legendary' New Jersey operative to run a 'legendary' field campaign. They lost by 4 points anyway. In the general, Lieberman basically didn't do field, and he crushed Lamont's 'legendary' field campaign by 10 points. |
The incentives in politics are all organized against effective community organizing, which is why field departments are underfunded. Paying 15% for media buys, as Obama does, and having his campaign management in bed with his media firm, creates an incentive to run lots and lots of TV and to not focus on field. Screwing volunteer Joe Anthony for running Obama's MySpace page, and then claiming they had no money to pay him the week after a $25M fundraising quarter, is exactly the top-down media politics that leads to bad field campaigns. Clinton actually doesn't have a 15 percent media structure for her consultants, and her political operation is much smarter.
Now, I can't really evaluate field campaigns, but the blogosphere as a whole can. From 2002-2004, bloggers deconstructed polling and fundraising, and opened up politics to lots of people who didn't know how it all worked. There's an opportunity to do this now with field. Zack Exley the Huffington Post's Off the Bush has an interesting and compelling experiment, where Huffington Post readers actually report on field trainings and events from the various Democratic campaigns. It's a neat idea, and already, it's bearing good fruit. Exley himself is somewhat intrigued and laudatory of Obama's campaign.
Inside the Obama campaign, an eclectic team of field organizers is attempting something that has long been considered impossible: building a precinct-level field organization large enough to affect the outcome of Super Tuesday (now February 5, or "Super Duper Tuesday"). If successful -- aided by email lists, web tools and old school organizing techniques long missing in electoral politics -- these organizers could rewrite the rules of presidential politics, dramatically raise the profile of field organizing in the campaign world and help rebuild Democratic party structure in states, such as California, that have been long forgotten to electoral field organizing.
Over the past two months, the Obama campaign has staged a number of in-depth, three-day trainings in February 5 states, with more than 1,000 carefully selected volunteers attending. Trainees leave the events organized into teams by Congressional district, charged with building an organization that reaches all the way down to the precinct level.
Glynnis Macnicol and Mayhill Fowler both report blistering failures in the Obama operation, from a low dollar fundraiser that was way overbooked to a lackluster volunteer operation. It's also a bit irritating to hear about how Obama has 'legendary' organizer Marshall Ganz on board, a man who learned from Caesar Chavez and Saul Alinsky's people and who must therefore be teh awesome. Apparently, Ganz, who has been on every winning Presidential campaign in the last two hundred years, is a legend that builds legendary field programs, and he learned from legends. So you can be sure that whatever happens in the Obama campaign, it will surely be legendary.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign is creating a powerful California operation, both volunteer-wise and message-wise. Chris Lehane, a Clinton surrogate, is running an independent campaign to beat back the electoral vote theft by Republicans along with the progressive and unaffiliated Courage Campaign. Clinton is taking care of California, picking fights along with progressives. I don't yet have a great handle on the Edwards world, and I hope I learn more. That Joe Trippi has increased his power in the Edwards campaign makes me deeply skeptical of that operation, since Trippi's track record is one of moments of punctured brilliance and long periods of no follow-through dysfunction. Edwards is, like Obama, nowhere in California's electoral ballot issue. They may send out a petition, but I bet it's just an email generation tool and not a real organizing moment (yup, here it is, a clear list-building move that doesn't help the broader movement).
Aside from real work in California spearheaded by both independent progressive movement groups and their own independent surrogates, the Clinton campaign is doing the small things correctly. They have actually put a good online voter registration widget on their website where they get to keep the data of the people who registered to vote through their page. No one else has done that yet.
This is kind of sad. If I thought I could have an effect, I would spend a good amount of effort to prevent Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination. She's going to be a bad President with poor advisors, she's a weak candidate who makes bad hawkish arguments, and she isn't particularly progressive. Within a year and a half of taking office, her approval ratings are going to be lower than Bush's, as she's going to disappoint liberal Democrats just like this Congress has, and is going to get criticism from an angry right. But right now, she seems to be the only candidate running a semi-competent campaign, even working with movement progressives where the better fitting Obama and Edwards do not. In fights like the one in California, which are clear organizing opportunities, Obama and Edwards are nowhere to be seen, and when they do pick a fight, it's all about them and never about change.
Anyway, I'm going to be reading Off the Bush and Exley's new experiment. There will be a lot of cries, when poll denying fans of losing candidates wake up to their candidates poor positioning, of 'field field field' and 'youth vote youth vote youth vote'. There always are. And at least now there will citizens media there to help us understand whether these arguments are accurate.
Also, did you hear that Marshal Ganz is a legend? |
