Organizing for America

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe just posted a video for Organizing for America (OFA). After the colossal youth fail in the Massachusetts Special Election, two of the highest priorities of OFA members was bringing first time 2008 voters back to the polls in 2010 and registering new voters.

I just wrote about the contrast in the Mass elections where partisan organizers neglected young voters vs. the non-partisan youth outreach organizations that got the youth vote to the polls to pass a tax hike to wealthy people in Oregon. Does this mean OFA is committed to young voters in the 2010 election the way they were in 2008, or is this going to be a lip-service kinda thing?

I hope you're enjoying your Saturday evening. Here is some reading...

• Neil Howe (of Millennials Rising fame) and Reena Nadler co-authored a mammoth report that has just been released by the New America Foundation as a part of its Next Social Contract Initiative. The report's title is "'Yes We Can': The Emergence of Millennials as a Political Generation."
• Marc Ambinder ponders the success of Organizing for America's first set of meetings.
• Matt Cooper sizes up Obama's week over at TPMDC.
• Ron Brownstein praises Millennials' practicality.
• To arm or not to arm? That's the question on many college campuses. Campus Politico has the story.
• Bloggers have rights too. The Electronic Frontier Foundation tries to simplify them here.
• Detroit's mayoral candidate, Freman Hendrix, is targeting the youth vote via technology. Kudos to him.
• Jesse Arreguin was the first Latino and youngest person ever to be elected to Berkeley's City Council. Youth Outlook interviews him to find out how he seeks to catalyze positive change.

As many of you have probably heard, Organizing for America (aka Obama for America 2.0) took it's first action today, asking thousands of supporters to hold house parties to watch a video and discuss the importance of the stimulus. Sam Stein at Huffington Post has the full email.

By far the most interesting take on this so far has come from Zephyr Teachout, the woman behind Howard Dean's internet strategy. In Zephyr's opinion, not only will OFA fail as an organization, but she believes it's imperative that it does:

Organizing for America sent out a request for house parties today, asking people to watch a video about Obama's economic recovery plan, talk about it with their friends, and build support for it. While there will be tweaks, this is the kind of action we can anticipate from OFA.

I predict that there will be perhaps a thousand of such parties, then hundreds, then dozens. I think OFA will fail in its mission to directly engage Obama supporters in supporting Obama's executive actions. And I think this is a very good thing.

It will fail because Obama--suiting a President--is not oppositional, conflict-driven, and not likely to pick out particular targets to be won over--all things that are likely to engage people. It will fail because it is from OFA, not from Obama. And it will fail because OFA cannot be a new democratic party, but will have a hard time defining what it is, and what kind of real power ought exist at every level of the organization.

Zephyr offers an interesting alternative to this model; one that is instead based on decentralization and a greater emphasis on localism (hmmm.....sounds a whole lot more like something I remember called the 50 State Strategy):

This is not to say I think OFA should throw away its list and networks. If it were up to me, I would encourage OFA to throw all of its support and resources at local democratic parties and officials--to decentralize the data, and let local groups experiment. I believe Obama has largely done his job, by getting elected and by electrifying the country and showing people that they can have power; but for them to exercise it meaningfully, instead of simply acting as shills for Presidential policy, they will need to exercise it through our representative offices: Congress, and the state houses.

I have to say that I agree with this. I know Zephyr is speaking towards wielding policy power, but I can't help but be reminded of the Cornell Belcher memo to the DNC and the 20% of youth who dropped off the Democratic ticket down-ballot. I can understand the desire of the Obama team to want to marshal support for their policies, but let's be real: they don't need additional support. On Wednesday the stimulus bill passed in the House of Representatives without a single Republican Vote. And it's possible that if Judd Gregg accepts an appointment as Commerce Secretary, we could see a filibuster proof 60 Democrats in the Senate.

Democrats do, however, need to keep working if they want to make sure that their numerical advantage in Congress - and in state houses - is secure and growing. That will require more down-ballot work as described b Zephyr and Cornell Belcher. It's not yet clear if Organizing for America will be suitable to that task.

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?

I'm about to get in the car to head down to Baltimore. I'm staying with my aunt and taking the metro into DC tomorrow for the inauguration and then again at night for the official youth ball. I plan on taking tons of pictures at both events. I'll try to upload them and blog about the experience during the afternoon when I have some down time. For those at home, the youth ball will be broadcast on MTV at 10pm Eastern. In the meantime, here's some interesting reads and updates on things we've blogged about previously:

• The biggest news is that OFA 2.0 officially launched as Organizing for America - a reimagination of the Obama political operation inside the DNC. I share Micah Sifry's take on it thus far. Here's the announcement from the President Elect himself:

• Speaking of organizing for America, today's is the national day of service planned by the Obama campaign. Follow along or find an opportunity in your area at the USA Service website. Also do check out Peter Levine's blog post about today's volunteer activities.
• Future Majority got a shout-out in the latest youth/constituent newsletter from Speaker Pelosi's office. You can sign up for those emails here.
• Campus Progress lists 6 things the incoming Obama administration must do to make headway on the issues that matter to young voters.
• Rock the Vote polled its membership to determine the direction of the organization in 2009. Preliminary results are here, and they tend to favor policy work aimed at solving the economic crisis.
• Eric Greenberg has a nice piece at the Huffington Post explaining the importance of young voters in the 2008 campaign.
• The New York Times has a nice photo essay of Obama's 50 closest advisors. There are three Millennials in the group. Check it out.
• On the other side of the aisle, the Houston Chronicle interviews Young Republican Chairman Jessica Colon and asks her how the Republicans can recapture the youth vote.
• Finally, in light of tomorrow's events, I think we can all recognize and celebrate this as an especially significant time to celebrate Martin Luther King Day: