Watch out, Utah, here we come:
Senator Barack Obama is drawing up plans for extensive advertising and voter-turnout drives across the nation, hoping to capitalize on his expected fund-raising advantage over Senator John McCain to force Republicans to compete in states they have not had to defend in decades…
…Mr. Obama is also dispatching paid staff members to all 50 states, an unusual move by the standards of modern presidential campaigns so often fought in just a contained group of contested territories.
His aides and advisers said they did not believe Obama necessarily has a serious chance of winning in many of the traditionally Republican states, but rather that he can at least draw Mr. McCain into spending time and money there while also swelling the rolls of Democratic voters and supporting other Democrats on the ballot.
Dr. Dean did the necessary legwork that makes Obama’s strategy possible. Not that Dean got that much love for it in the Democratic establishment.
Today as I was making the rounds meeting the new Senators at their respective open house swearing-in ceremonies, I ran into Paul Begala…
“I hope you will support the 50-state strategy,” I told him, expecting the shrug off or a “nice to meet you too,” but that isn’t what Begala had in mind.
“That depends what you mean by 50 state strategy he said.” I responded by telling him that I meant the plan for Democrats to compete everywhere and for every office in the country. That I don’t support he said, “we should start with principles and values.” “Sure, we should compete everywhere” he muttered, “but that’s not the right strategy.” He continued that after working for over 30 campaigns this cycle, not a single one of those campaigns was helped by the 50-state strategy. He challenged me to name examples where the 50-state strategy helped us win in 2006. I proceeded to cite wins in Kentucky and Indiana, along with progress in Nebraska and Kansas as evidence of the plan’s short term success.
“Look,” he said, “When we started there were only about 15 competitive races, but Rahm made the field over 35 by the end and that had nothing to do with the 50-state strategy.” I told him we never would have had so many competitive districts if not for the DNC investing staffers and resources into those states early on and expanding the playing field. “So you have people out there, what are they doing there though?” he questioned. “I told him they were building a long term infrastructure for the Democratic Party, and we had people all over America knocking on doors and spreading the Democratic message. “So what do they say when they knock on the doors then?” he asked me. I told him they had a succinct 6 point plan for a “new direction” that they were discussing, a cohesive message that we haven’t had in the past. “Anyway,” Begala continued… “I don’t need some a**hole from Vermont telling me what to do.”
Begala won’t have the opportunity to tell anyone what to do now that his candidate lost the nomination. Begala will have to watch the spectacle from the sidelines.
Party leaders in Republican-leaning states like Georgia and Montana are already reporting an influx of paid Obama staffers and volunteers who were sent there to begin registering potential Obama voters.
Mr. Obama’s team is also sending resources to Virginia, which no Democratic presidential candidate has won since 1964. Abbi Easter, treasurer of the state’s Democratic Party, said Mr. Obama had dispatched five paid staff members to the state to begin organizing a voter registration drive.
“I’ve been doing Democratic politics in the state for 25 years, and this is such a novelty I feel like a kid at their first Christmas,” Ms. Easter said. She said she was also expecting help from as many as 100 of the 3,600 “Obama Organizing Fellows,” a group of full-time volunteers fanning out across the country to oversee local registration efforts. The mobilization is being helped along by Mr. Obama’s robust Internet operation specializing in reaching out to the younger voters who use social networking sites like FaceBook.
But Mr. Plouffe said the volunteer program was modeled after the one Mr. Bush’s aides devised in 2004, which sent supporters door to door to spread the word about Mr. Bush in their own neighborhoods — a personal touch informed by detailed lists of neighbors’ occupations, voting histories, pet causes and hobbies.
Obama has already proven that his model is superior to the one espoused by Paul Begala. With Begala’s kind of thinking, we wouldn’t even be making an effort in Montana or Georgia. And, remember, a 50-state strategy means staffers are being sent into safe Blue States, too. That’s something Begala never would have thought of doing because his type doesn’t care an iota about the party as a whole, but only what the party can do for the presidential candidate.
