Dan Balz of the Washington Post takes a look at the Obama administration’s gearing up for its reelection campaign. One thing that Balz notes is that the administration still maintains its belief in the power of people-powered politics.
Few campaigns have ever been as devoted to grass-roots organization as Obama’s. Perhaps inspired by the president’s roots as a community organizer, his political operation is infused with almost missionary zeal about the power of people coming together – aided by new technology and social-networking resources.
I have no doubt that the Obama-Biden 2012 campaign will be masters at the technological side of the battle because the most talented people in that field are going to line-up as a bloc against whatever travesty of a candidate the Republicans produce. I am not so certain that they can replicate the same hope-based missionary zeal. I don’t like fear-based politics, but we really have to make the opposition a completely unacceptable alternative. If we fail to do that, the election will again line up largely along red/blue lines, and, if that happens, not only is there a small risk of losing the election, but the Senate will almost certainly be lost. To avoid losing the Senate we must recruit very well, be extremely aggressive, and, most importantly, we must help Obama win a crushing victory that vastly expands the map. Fortunately, campaign manager Jim Messina is thinking along the same lines.
Strategically, Obama’s team is thinking aggressively. Messina said it is too early to talk seriously about the general election map and targeted states, but at a time when some analysts on the other side suggest that Obama’s options will be more limited in 2012 than in 2008, Messina believes just the opposite.
“I understand the challenges of any reelection campaign,” he said, “but we’re going to go into this with an expanded map and a bigger map in the beginning than in ’08.”
I think that’s the correct mindset. We’ve been trapped in a red/blue paradigm for so long that its easy to accept it as the basic political battlefield. But do not forget that when Richard Nixon won reelection in 1972, he carried New York, California, and the entire Upper Midwest. Ronald Reagan carried Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey in 1984. Some elections aren’t about red vs. blue, but about acceptable vs. unacceptable. Sometimes the choice becomes obvious to the American people after one side simply wins the argument. That has to the goal for Democrats and for the entire left in this upcoming election. And you can’t make that case solely on hope. You have to tap into the anxieties of the people, too. I don’t mean in any kind of cynical way. The Republicans are radical enough that we don’t need to exaggerate the threat they pose to choice, to the economy, to the environment, to science and education, to world peace, to religious and ethnic minorities, to women in general, or to the gay community. Civil liberties are bad enough under Obama, but the case has to be made that they would be much worse under Republican leadership.
To win really big, we’re going to have to point out that the other side is very dangerous, and that’s not a hopeful message. If the president won’t make that case forcefully (and he probably won’t), it is going to be up to the rest of us to spread that message to everyone we know. The goal has to be a landslide. A narrow reelection will leave us paralyzed for another four years.
