The “Obama Crew”, as we were coined, with our new pal from the LTLC, George Hodges. George, wearing his new Obama pin, said to me, “I hope Obama does all the things he said he would do. Especially getting our boys back from Iraq.” (h/t to Susanne Curry, in the blue turtle neck, for putting this event together)
Here is an ad Obama put together with The Ad Council. It is titled – Step Forward
Can we say “Obama 2.0?”
Obama’s political staff is deciding whether to create a service organization that would use the vast corps of its grass-roots campaign supporters. As described by one source knowledgeable with the discussions, this nonprofit arm would be used to help victims of natural disasters, but would do so under the Obama umbrella while continuing to build the overall network’s massive e-mail database.
The prospect of a president being able to guide a service or relief agency outside the framework of his government is a unique development.
Though the campaign-style organizing network would be operated through the Democratic National Committee, the new service organization is envisioned as a separate nonprofit. Obama recently appointed his friend Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia as chairman of the DNC and his campaign battleground states director, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, as executive director.
Some top Obama organizers, such as former deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, had argued that the grass-roots machinery should be kept separate from the DNC to avoid alienating Republicans and independents who were inspired by Obama but could be turned off by a close association with the Democratic Party. But those organizers are not part of the inner circle drafting the plan.
A centralized system run from the DNC would mark a break from the Democratic tradition of relying more on muscular state and local party organizations. It would more closely mirror the Republican structure created under President Bush, whose political guru Karl Rove engineered the 2004 reelection campaign from his post at the White House using a central GOP database.
One key difference, however, is that the Republicans used their network to target Democrats and win elections, whereas the Obama system will be used at least in part to influence members of the president’s own party.
