More Questions (and a few answers) about OFA 2.0

Another week and more stories about OFA 2.0 continue to trickle out, offering a smattering of new information, and often even more questions. Since how OFA 2.0 plays out may in large part decide how the Democratic Party engages (or rather, begins to engage) young voters, I thought it might be good to compile what we now know and the questions that are still unanswered.

What We Know

• OFA 2.0 will be housed in the DNC and not run as an independent entity.
• Tim Kaine will be a figurehead/fundraiser at the DNC (so praise from YDA and CDA for his pick seems fairly premature), while the day-to-day operations will be run by Jennifer Dillon O'Malley.
• OFA 2.0 (now Organizing for America) will in turn be run by Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird.

What the Rumor Mill Says

• The 50 State Strategy will continue, albeit in an altered form.
• OFA 2.0 will aim to have a $75 million budget.

Open Questions

• Dillon O'Malley is a bit of a wild card when it comes to the youth vote. She ran Iowa for Edwards, who did poorly with the youth but also was one of the few candidates to not question the voting rights of local students. She later did battleground work for Obama so she must at least have some positive feelings about youth engagement, but how that will translate at the DNC is unclear.
• Ditto Bird and Stewart, who worked in battleground states for Obama. How will they incorporate youth outreach into OFA's work?
• Where is Students for Barack Obama and Generation Obama in all of this? Considering all the props given to young voters by President Obama and (DNC) Chairman Tim Kaine, you would think that there would be at least some mention of how the youth element of the campaign will roll into all of this. The lack of information about youth engagement is peculiar. My fear is that such engagement work will be completely outsourced to USA Service, the independent entity that is getting spun out of the Obama campaign.

Greg Sargent at the Plum Line has some more questions that I think are relevant:

* How will this group do its fundraising? With the economic crisis expected to take a big toll on fundraising by the Dem party committees, will this new group’s fundraising siphon off needed funds from Dem operations focused on 2010?

* Is the White House going to do any meaningful blog outreach? Or will all such efforts be run from the DNC? Who will be the main blog outreach person?

* How is this new group going to interact with the White House and the administration’s political communications shop?

* How aggressively will this new machine target Congressional Democrats who are resistant to this or that aspect of Obama’s agenda?

* How can a campaign-like organization such as this one function in an environment where there’s no concrete end date, such as there is in a political race, and no single focus, such as a candidate?