Obama is sending 3,600 newly trained volunteers into 17 swing states for six weeks of unpaid organizing work. That’s an average of 212 trained field workers per state. The 3,600 were selected from an applicant field of over 10,000 and they all had to go through telephone interviews. These are very committed folks, and John McCain has nothing to compete with them. I don’t want to overestimate the effectiveness of volunteer organizers, but 212 per state is a lot. This is on top of Obama’s already robust 50-state organization, and on top of the DNC’s 50-state organization.
Forget the polls. The Democrats are going to out-hustle the Republicans even on their home turf.
Obama is thorough, isn’t he?
It’s going to be a fun couple of years.
nalbar
I am forced to wonder, is it Obama that is this organized, or is it his team.
I guess in the long run, it doesn’t matter, because it is more important that he chooses people around him to do the right things, but it seems as though he is more organized, and does this ‘election’ stuff better than any Democratic candidate in my life-time (30 some odd years).
Is it him do you think, or his people, and if it is his people, where the heck were they 4 & 8 years ago?
Remember that for the last four presidential election cycles in a row, the theoretical underpinning of the Democratic Party’s strategy was to win over soccer moms and office park dads with microtargeted bullshit policies that meant basically nothing to people’s quality of life.
Translated into a ground game, this meant putting all resources into the suburbs of less than 20 states.
Once you toss aside those faulty assumptions and actually shoot for a governing majority (landslide victory), you suddenly start to look a lot smarter.
You also look smarter if you actually surround yourself with competent people.
Using loyalty and the acceptance of the goofy nickname he gave them as your criteria made Bush look stupid.
Surrounding themselves with political hacks, muscle and spinmeisters just made people pissed at the Clintons
Ive never been one of those that thought Bush was stupid. Completely lacking in empathy yes, but not stupid.
For me, the ship sailed on him when he made fun of Carla Fay Tucker. Say what you will about the death-penalty (I have mixed feelings), it should not be taken lightly.
I guess, I find him to be probably quite bright, but completely heartless and cold, calculating – a sociopath.
Lots of people who know him, even his critics, say he’s not dumb.
But it is a huge job and it can’t be done alone. Unless you have good people around you, your response to things like Katrina and your planning leading up to the war will make you look pretty stupid.
To me this may be single most impressive thing about his compaign. The most important thing a president does is select the people around him, lead them, and expect them to lead as well. This campaign give me great confidence in this regard.
The video someone posted of him addressing his HQ staff was amazing from the leadership perspective. If it wasn’t political, I would love to use it in my leadership development and executive coaching work.
In short, he is clearly in relation with everyone in the room. He is meeting his needs by meeting their needs. He is fostering contribution by acknowledging their contribution. And fostering authenticity and curiosity by showing his own humility. He is creating power for himself by empowering them.
These are qualities of truly great leaders and I think it will translate to a truly great administration.
I think too those qualities are why he inspires so many people.
I haven’t seen that video. Does someone have a linky?
It was on your site while you were in Italy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnhmByYxEIo
Thank you! Watching now, with delight.
thanks andrew, l missed it…that is impressive.
It is an impressive thing to watch.
I don’t remember how he phrased it, but the it was something akin to “we have to win, because we won”.
No kidding.
A colleague of mine… a former Marine, played QB at Navy, conservative Republican, has coach Fortune 50 CEOs for 20 years… he saw this and was blown away.
He is intellectually honest enough, and can be content agnostic enough, to view this for what it is: A boss demonstrating remarkable leadership to his staff.
And he says he’s never seen better. Completely evolved, self aware and authentic as he relates to everyone in the room. Engaging them to a common vision of the future. Putting his ego aside so others can as well. Fostering contribution and commitment. I could go on.
Yes, remarkable indeed.
for starters his team had to attend Obama camp immersion in becoming an organizer, how it works, how to build from scratch in your community and there was homework too – like you had to read this TNR piece.
and you ain’t see nothing yet. Obama intends to staff all 50 states.
A large chunk of DNC operation has moved to the campaign’s Chicago HQ.
On the volunteering end – There’ll be thousands upon thousands of house parties for undecided voters across the country, phone banking – same as what worked during the primary cycle.
Johnny Mac and the GOP won’t know what it means to be out-campaigned. And swift-boating is so, so, well aged.
Hey, in only 16 months the Obama camp organized in 50, out fundraised and took down the Clinton machine.
Bowers has a good piece on this.
The Obama Staffers in Philly called me a couple of weeks ago to see if anyone could provide a place for scores of the “Obama Fellows” to sleep. I forwarded an email to my listserv and got dozens of responses back with space.
Now, here’s the thing. I’ve done this before – and usually volunteer coordinators get overwhelmed with a task like this, and people fall through the cracks, volunteer hours and goodwill is wasted.
But not the Obama staffers. They are as quick and efficient as any field team I’ve seen.