Obama calls on his Internet campaign army to march again

McClatchy Washington Bureau ^ | Nov. 20, 2008 | Frank Greve

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

President-elect Barack Obama's 3 million campaign volunteers got re-enlistment notices this week.

Campaign manager David Plouffe, in a mass e-mail sent Wednesday to former workers, asked how much time they can spare for four missions integral to Obama's effort to transform his victory into a broader political movement.

The volunteers' options are, Plouffe wrote:

-Campaign for progressive state and local candidates

-Undertake grassroots local efforts to advance Obama's agenda

-Train others in Obama's organizing techniques

-Focus on local political issues.

"Obama's building a political machine," said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution, a center-left Washington research group.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

I find this chilling. Do you?

My inclination, after the long and weary political campaign we have all just gone through, is to ignore politics for a while. But this article (which I recommend reading in its entirety) made my head snap up.

Obama has plans. Big ones. And he is mobilizing his Obamabots to ram them through for him.

What are we doing to counteract this? How are *we* using the power of the Internet to get our own message across? What can we do against the Obamabots?

... Read and discuss.

[randomhero97]

What can we do against the Obamabots?

Well, you for sure as hell can't change their minds even if you slap facts right in their face. These people are brainwashed. What we need to do is let natural selection reign supreme once more.

[Yaelle]

They were getting discouraged, and reacting unhappily on their blogs, about the traditional Democrats he is using to fill his administration. Maybe if he just flirts with them enough now, telling them they are still the real, important ones to him, he can keep them around for political hayrolling a little longer, just like a cheating boyfriend might.

[redhead]

Well, if the whining and bellyaching at places like DUh are any indication, it won’t be too long before disillusionment and disappointment set in, and they decide “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on ME.”

[thecabal]

What's the big deal, he's just preparing the way for his Messiah's Brownshirts Civilian Security Force?

[Global2010]

Hmmm.
How many of us who get spammed by Obama and his political pals can have a little fun with this.

[ChicagahAl]

“My inclination.... is to ignore politics for a while.”

The Left never rests, never quits, never takes a break. Its how they constantly beat our brains in. (They also never stay home on election day simply because their party's candidate has flaws - but that's a story for next election)

“What can we do against the Obamabots?”

Become energized about your political philosophy. Blog. Write letters. Converse with people. Become a conservative “evangelical”. Most of all - don't “ignore politics for a while”. You might come back later to discover that America has left the building.

[LifeComesFirst]

I agree, but I think his big plans are more to do with staying in power than with a political agenda.

If he’s Mr. Political Agenda, then why did he vote “present” so many times?

Obama is simply a political product with lots of phony advertising.

[Does so]

What's the big deal, he's just preparing the way for his Messiah's Brownshirts Civilian Security Force?

Three million volunteers can find a lot of Conservatives to sic the IRS onto.

[I see my hands]

Rush has a much larger army. He has restrained from calling them to action by matter of his policy. Maybe he will change his policy.

[re_tail20]

I don’t so much find this chilling as I find it challenging

Given the narrowness of Obama’s victory, For every one of Obama’s supporters getting this email, there’s an opponent who’s not.

How many of these Obama supporters are disillusioned somewhat now with Rahm and Hillary? If they’re not disillusioned to support a Republican, Rahm, Hillary, and the “getting on with our lives” call will cause them to put Obama’s call on their back burners.

What are we doing, or what will we do, to counteract this?

There’s been only three weeks so far to answer this, not enought time at all. But the answer lies first with the Conservatives and Republicans in their Teens and Twenties and then on up. They’re the most familiar with the Internet, having grown up with it, and they have the freshest ideas as to how the Republican Party can Re-Tool itself to use the Internet effectively.

[re_tail20]

I don’t so much find this chilling as I find it challenging

Given the narrowness of Obama’s victory, For every one of Obama’s supporters getting this email, there’s an opponent who’s not.

How many of these Obama supporters are disillusioned somewhat now with Rahm and Hillary? If they’re not disillusioned to support a Republican, Rahm, Hillary, and the “getting on with our lives” call will cause them to put Obama’s call on their back burners.

What are we doing, or what will we do, to counteract this?

There’s been only three weeks so far to answer this, not enought time at all. But the answer lies first with the Conservatives and Republicans in their Teens and Twenties and then on up. They’re the most familiar with the Internet, having grown up with it, and they have the freshest ideas as to how the Republican Party can Re-Tool itself to use the Internet effectively.

[giotto]

Obama’s base is made up mostly of people with their hands out. Remember the woman who believed Obama was going to pay her mortgage and car payment. I sincerely doubt that he will be able to mobilize more than 5% of his “army,” when the call comes.

[nathanbedford]

Instead of regarding this as a head fake to keep disgruntled lefties on board in the wake of conservative left appointments, we should consider those appointments to be a head fake to middle America while he organizes the country along Saul Alinsky lines. This is where the real action is.

Even if I've got this completely backwards and the center-left approach that he has presented to the country by virtue of his early appointments is the real one, we cannot afford to risk the alternative by remaining defenseless with their heads in the sand.

I know of no one in the conservative establishment who can see the real danger in this and will react to it as a life-and-death struggle with the possible exception of Newt Gingrich who apparently is out of the running for chairman of the RNC. Michael Steele is definitely not the man to wage this kind of guerrilla war. Business as usual will put us so far behind the power curve that we will never recover. The next election could really be shock and awe.

Is there anybody home in the Republican establishment?

[Aria]

They have too much money - and who knows from were.

I believe the ultimate goal is to get money out of rich white people’s hands and into the hands of the poor around the world. He’ll have an endless supply of money for this.

[dr_who]

It’s the Democrats’ version of Scientology!

[unspun]

I have a lot of experience in recruiting, building, organizing, and activating local electoral volunteers (community organizing, sans the communism).

We can do a very good job of this, but two elements are critical:

1. a local core of one or more organizers committed to giving significant time and effort.

2. just a little money, to allow the organizers to meet a few expenses and to provide them some centralized administrative and data management help.

I know about the methods that work. It’s been done with conservatives — even in the Chicagoland area. ;-`

About $150,000 should be all it takes to allow a state the size of Illinois to be organized with a huge standing army of grassroots activists.

[Sharrukin]

The GOP will never see office again!

Between ACORN, Project Vote, Joe the Plumber investigations of critics, Sarah Palin expose’ of opponents, campaign finance fraud, voter intimidation, out-of-staters bussed in, vote finding, and voter intention procedures, friendly Democratic judges, corrupt local officials, biased bureaucrats, flash mobs, a compliant MSM, the Fairness Doctrine, US attorneys, and the Attorney General how exactly could anyone win an election against this?

The majesty of office won’t change them! These people do not play by the rules, as they have demonstrated time and time again. They won’t start now.

[johnthebaptistmoore]

Barack Obama is already seen as the “closest thing to being a perfect President” by too many people in general and throughout the entire world that Obama has nothing but failure really coming his way very soon after January 20, 2009. Real world reality on all issues will help create the eventual downfall of Barack Obama, unless either reality is continuously and successfully suppressed to the best of human abilities in order to help leftists continue to maintain their political power, or unless both Obama and leftists in general really do decide to seriously move more to the political right as a whole political entity, after actually seeing the “ills of their ways” of continuous leftist politicking (Yea, right! Good luck in seeing the second choice actually happening!).

[Nateman]

A plan for a counter-offensive

[nathanbedford]

It’s the Democrats’ version of Scientology!

That and a giant cyber-age multilevel marketing organization leveraging the power of twos. These Ponzi schemes start with two people who talk to four people who talk to 16 people. Except now this is done at the speed of light.

Scientology and Herbalife all have mind control in common. Saul Alinsky makes no bones about thought manipulation and control.

Michelle explicitly warned us that this was going to happen.

[ari-freedom]

Michael Steele is definitely not the man to wage this kind of guerrilla war.

no, he’s just a nice guy you see on tv. that’s not what RNC chair is about

[Darkwolf377]

What are we doing to counteract this?

We have to stop whining and beat 'em at their own game.

The RNC has to stop wasting their money on whatever they wasted it on in the process of NOT winning this election cycle.

Obama won because he had tons more money and better organization.

We have to have an RNC that isn't interested in all this "moving to the middle" crap but is fired up about actual conservative values. They have to chose a new version of the Contract With America--come up with 5-10 bullet points of what the Republican Party wants to achieve.

Then they have to organize voters and call on them the way Obama is.

We can complain that this is fascism or whatever, and keep losing to it, or we can admit "OK, they beat us, now let's learn from what they did" and bring the fight to them.

I suspect this will not happen. The RNC is a country club group more interested in having Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and the liberal press LIKE them. They don't want to appear "scary" to E. J. Dionne. They're more interested in that than in defining legitimate differences and offering actual conservative governing ideas.

[nathanbedford]

I fear you might be right in that bleak assessment. The disciples of Saul Alinsky do not covet power only to see it forfeited because they play by the rules.

Worse, I see no evidence whatsoever that anyone anywhere in the Republican establishment has a clue. The Bush administration would not close the border and would not prosecute vote fraud while they held the executive branch. We are holding nothing now but our own asses. The first thing we have to do is get rid of Bush's establishment crowd and get some guerrilla fighters.

I fear in the next election we are going to see, as I posted before, the political version of shock and awe.

[Shery]

After this election, we can see that things are decidedly stacked against us. However, we must counter-attack with a grassroots movement that stays off the radar, and also we must pray like there is no tomorrow.

I believe that there is a spiritual element of judgement in all this that is happening, as America is not just a little off-course, but a lot. We Christians don’t walk our talk much and we have pretty much allowed the left to take the culture from us. So, we must be salt and light again in this dark world and live godly lives. We do have a God who hears prayer, but He is not there as a personal Santa Claus. He has a purpose in this world, too, and that is to bring His kingdom to earth. We need to be going about that business and let God frustrate the efforts of the Evil one. Our prayer should be that His will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven.

[Prole]

[nathanbedford]

I think the conventional grassroots mobilization methods, even upgraded and intensified as they were by Karl Rove in 2004, have become as outmoded as a cavalry charge in 1939. They did not work in 2006 or in 2008. I do not think that we even know how the new Blitzkrieg version of electoral warfare actually will be conducted. I think were moving into a new method of conducting elections as radical as Blitzkrieg in 1939 and the Gulf war. I am convinced that no one in the Republican party establishment has read Rommel's book.

That is not to say that just because conventional grassroots organizations are outclassed by the new cyber/Alinsky methods they should be abandoned. To the contrary, we have got to go with what we have if only to mitigate the disparity. But in doing so must not deceive ourselves that we are accomplishing very much. Those of us who predicted the electoral disasters 2006 and 2008 have become extremely wary of mindless optimism which is so often seen, for example, on these threads which has the fatal effect of masking mortal peril.

[Fred]

The One's top fundraiser

[Chet 99]

The Republicans need to step back from fighting (for now), and even encourage and support Obama’s picks and legislation. This will place a further wedge between Obama and the netrooters who supported him. The goal is to discourage them from the entire process and sit out in 2010. If they stay home, we have another 1994.

[unspun]

That is not to say that just because conventional grassroots organizations are outclassed by the new cyber/Alinsky methods they should be abandoned. To the contrary, we have got to go with what we have if only to mitigate the disparity. But in doing so must not deceive ourselves that we are accomplishing very much.

As far as organizing on the ground is concerned (which is the the foundation of politics) the sad truth and yet the opportunity that still lays before us is this: we have never come close to approaching the kind of organizing we can and probably must do.

We do not need tricks. We have the basic resources we need. We have the plans that have worked* and will continue to work. We just need modest money, focus, determination, and the commitment to utter camaraderie and utterly no division.

I could go on and on (and have, including training materials and a fund raising prospectus).
____________________

*plans that very effectively recruit a big "sleeping giant" of very available people direcly into bottom-up electoral activities, not the top-down, crippled 501(c)4's of the 1980's and 90's.

[nathanbedford]

Sort of like the way we peeled away the Hillary supporters who voted for Palin instead of Obama and won us the election?

Organizing in the cyber world will hardly energize the wing nuts on the far left. They are not going to peel away from Obama anyway, he will throw them a bone in time and they will be merrily drinking the Kool-Aid

I think I will change my tag line from Bull Halsey's signal to the fleet, "attack, repeat, attack!" To Lord Nelson's order to the fleet at Trafalgar, "engage the enemy more closely."

[Chet 99]

The DUmmies and Kosacks are on edge right now over the seemingly moderate moves. Republicans could put them in a tizzy if they actually started praising Obama’s moves.

That isn’t to say this is a long term strategy, but certainly only the next few months of the honeymoon period.

I agree about Newt Gingrich... while House Republicans had become fat and happy living in the minority for 40 years (hey, nice perks but responsibilities is life in the minority party), he made a concrete plan to win the House. He said “WE WILL DO X”. In recent years, the GOP argument has more or less been “We’re not as bad as the Democrat”. People need something to SUPPORT.

[nathanbedford]

The same old same old failed in 2006 and 2008 what makes you think that more of the same will generate a better result now? Even if you are right that we do not need tricks but a return to fundamentals, we need above all a sense of urgency, a sense that we are in mortal peril.

I am unconvinced that we can safely ignore the threat posed by marrying Saul Alinsky to the Internet and continue on with 20th-century methods.

What we need is a ramrod who can energize an organization. someone who can exploit the Internet. Michael Steele is clearly not that man. Whom do you propose? We need a real turnaround artist, not a country club Republican.

[nathanbedford]

I continue to think that the real danger posed by Obama comes from his Manchurian Marxism. If he remains merely a centerleft candidate, the Republic will survive his administration. The real danger comes from his potentially radical associations, and Saul Alinsky like tendency to establish a cult of personality, a demonstrated propensity to squash free speech, and a proven ability to mesmerize a good chunk of the electorate.

If his Marxism becomes the dominant theme of his presidency, and if it is enabled through converting the Democratic Party into a giant community organizing machine along Saul Alinsky lines, conservatism may well be dead. Therefore, our strategy must be to peel the center away from him, not the left whose psychology is probably immune to our logic and certainly to our entreaties.

It may be okay in a very short term basis, as you suggest, to engage in a little two-step dance to try to separate Obama from some of his extreme left-wing base. But there are dangers in this course. The first is that it promotes an implicit endorsement of his centerleft policies which affirms his legitimacy and makes our ultimate job of seducing away the center only more difficult. Another problem with that strategy is that it tends to reassure the middle that Obama has no truck with the extreme leftists with which we conservatives have been trying to taint him.

I quite agree that mindless attacks on Obama are counterproductive. We must have the right timing, the right issue, and the right spokesman. Right now we have none of these. I think we have to start with finding the right spokesman who should emerge as someone who can energize the party and articulate the three legs of the conservative school, fiscal conservatism, strong defense, and social conservatism, which is acceptable to all flavors of conservatives. He who can unite the party will no doubt be possessed of the forensic skills necessary to carry the fight to the enemy. Rather than praise Obama, I think our job is to articulate our own principles and let the public see whether they are compatible with Obama's positions. As the public begins to learn they like our principles, and that Obama does not, the middle will begin to emerge from its national neurosis.

Meanwhile, we must get busy with a sense of urgency like the country experienced after Pearl Harbor to reorganize, rearm, and prepare ourselves to wage 21st-century cyber/election warfare.

[torqemada]

>>Then they have to organize voters and call on them the way Obama is<<

This is exactly what we intend to do. Conservative Republicans are beginning to organize and mobilize forces to focus out efforts on local, county and state races and issues. I believe this call to Obama’s campaign army is in response to the news that conservatives intend to carry the fight to the local level. Check out the site at http://skagitrepublican.typepad.com and read the very first article, “GOP Reform: From the Grassroots Up” here: http://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?__mode=edit_entry&id=58898940&blog_id=1775290

Pass the word, link to the site, and get involved in your own local grassroots movement. We need a whole lot more do and a little less talk.

[torqemada]

Oops, sorry, the proper links are:
http://skagitrepublican.typepad.com
and
http://skagitrepublican.typepad.com/skagit_republican_grassro/calls_to_action/

[Darkwolf377]

I fear in the next election we are going to see, as I posted before, the political version of shock and awe.

Please explain, if possible add to your previous postings--what do you see since this past election that tells you we're in for even bigger trouble next election?

I have my own ideas about this. I defended Bush frequently around here, but the bailout thing still has be stunned, an unbelivable acceptance of Big Government as Big Brother, Sister, Mom, Dad and Maiden Aunt, there to soften all blows. As we've seen since, this "gotta have it NOW!!!!" boondoggle has not only inspired companies to simply say "Forget new business models, we'll just go get more money from our customers through the government!" but it's not even what it was to begin with! It seems like Paulson just got this big pile of money and THEN thought about what he would like to do with it.

Bush sure did Obama a big service with this. And McCain went along with it, no surprise--he is a fan of Teddy Roosevelt, but not the one most conservatives seem to like but the real TR, who was a liberal no matter how you slice it.

Forget that McCain looked like he was panicking, Bush trusted his economic team, and now it looks like all their Chicken Little stuff did precisely what it was intended to do--deliver even more control over the economy to DC. Does anyone seriously believe that Obama's economic team will be more conservative than Bush's? And how conservative was Bush's?

[PghBaldy]

Yep. How effective has been in the past? Not very, except for grabbing the credit, doing nothing, and moving on to higher offices. He has accomplished nothing except for moving on up.

[Caipirabob]

Is there anybody home in the Republican establishment?

I knocked, but it sounded like John McCain, and he says he's busy...

: (

[napscoordinator]

Given the narrowness of Obama’s victory

Narrowness? I wouldn’t say that. 357-187 electoral votes. 4 percent popular vote. I think he won a pretty big margin.

[napscoordinator]

The GOP will never see office again!

We thought Democrats would never win an election again. The GOP will have a President again. No party has ever gone more than 3 election wins in 40 years.

[Concho]

A lot of different groups are claiming to be organizing grass roots efforts. The key is to get all those groups to work together. If you can do that, then the grassroots will move mountains. As long as they are divided, they will be conquered.

Identify the Obamabots, because if the revolution begins, you need to know where to begin.

[nathanbedford]

LOL

[nathanbedford]

What I am about to say should be discounted because of the source. I heard Bill Kristol on one of the talk shows declare that he had spoken to players closely connected to Obama who advised Bill Kristol that they expected the country to go into the equivalent of the Great Depression. Certainly nothing in Paulson's behavior contradicts that assessment. I don't think anybody knows, not Warren Buffett, not Hank Paulson, and certainly not Barak Obama. It is known, however, that the Obama team is likening their takeover to Franklin Roosevelt's in 1932.

Clearly, they intend to exploit fully the economic and social dislocation which is currently creeping over us to do "good." Obama's Chief of Staff has acknowledged just that, indeed, he was eager to tell us just that. That could mean that Obama feels secure in appointing centerleft cabinet members outside of the economic arena, leaving a Republican at defense and putting Hillary at state(imagine describing Hillary Clinton as center but Ileft), because he intends to work the economic levers to achieve Marxist goals. As a disciple of Alinsky, he can be expected to be very patient but relentless. The worst-case scenario, as described by the blogger appearing in the American Thinker, HOWELL (?), is one in which Obama appears to be center-left but actually profoundly changes our institution and works an irretrievable Marxist revolution.

tough I don't know how bad the coming economic storm will be but, judging by your relatives, it is already bad enough for them to throw away their lifelong standards. Apart from talk radio which is in mortal peril, there is no national institution to oppose Obama should he socialize the economy.

There is no generation, except us old timers with the cultural memory to oppose him. We have no spokesman who can break through the media lockbox and get the attention of the American people, and, change perceptions. It is much easier to convince people than to unconvince them. The Republican brand has no credibility on economic issues having squandered it under George Bush. Conservatism, as such, can gain no traction merely being the skunk at the garden party calling for fiscal restraint. Mothers want to feed their babies.

By the time the next election rolls around, the electorate will be bathed in a whole new vocabulary, the demographics will have been altered by immigration and wholesale naturalizations, the old rules simply will not apply and the Internet savvy Democrats and leftists will have no intention of playing by 20th-century rules.

On our side, there does not seem to be any recognition of mortal peril for conservatism and for the country. We need an Oliver Cromwell but we're getting a Michael Steele. We slept walked into the defeats of 2006 and 2008 and there is no sign of any awakening yet. We are dying off and demographic changes are swelling their ranks. They are able to raise hundreds of billions of dollars and we are, perhaps rightly, closing our checkbooks to teach our side a lesson. In power, the left will extort untold money from business. As the government backs winners and abandons losers to bankruptcy in the economic crisis, political contributions will flood into Democratic coffers.

There is simply no positive perspective. The history of the Great Depression certainly does not provide one.

[GOP Poet]

Looks like we can’t rest long.

[DooDahhhh]

Good God!

[dusttoyou]

Are you kidding???
It is not as history has not seen this before.
Soros and the like have invested huge sums in nobama to gain power, FOR THEM. They may allow nobama to have his sway as long as he does not get in their way.
Marxists/Socialists are not really for the poor and downtrodden, they just tell them such BS and throw them a few crumbs to use them to get in power. It is all about POWER for “them” not the masses. The masses are just the worker ants. The Professors and MSM expect to be among the privileged.
They consider us conservatives as interferring with their goal. We will be extinguished or re-trained if they have their way.
This situation will not long remain just a political struggle! I say LIVE FREE or DIE. Now is no time to deter our better vision of America.

[MARTIAL MONK]

I agree with a lot of what you say but I think that you are getting caught up in some of your own rhetoric. First, on vote fraud:

During the Bush administration, a rhetorical tool became public policy. The Republicans could not get a photo ID law through the Senate, but they were able to enlist the 93 United States attorneys in their crusade against voter fraud. In 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced an initiative that required "all components of the [Justice] Department" to "place a high priority on the investigation and prosecution of election fraud."

-Salon-

David Iglasias was fired as U.S. Attorney in New Mexico because he did not push hard enough.

The "Country Club" Republican thing is a cheap shot. And meaningless. Those Country Club Republicans are scared crapless of any long term Democratic rule. The thing that I see here is that they did not turn on the money spigots until late in the game. A lot of that is disappointment with President Bush.

Amnesty is a done deal and will be behind us by the next election. It does not mean crap. Those demographic changes were coming anyway, especially if Republicans had been any sort of successful.

I agree that we need a spokesman, a face for the party. The one most qualified, I believe, is Fred Thompson. He is great on the one or two minute skewer ads. We don't need him to tell the country what conservatism is, we need for him to tell conservatives what conservatism is.

[Bellflower]

First of all visit blogs all over the net and do not let them intimidate you, get facts out. This is how they operate. They have tactics to try to flood the net with their ideology. They then try to make any Conservative into a fool who answers them. There seems to be so many of them on important blogs that a Conservative may feel alone, isolated and out numbered so he/she does not have the courage to respond. If any freeper comes across a blog where they have taken over we need to be able to call on other freepers to unite and counter them. If we do not people who are visiting an important ideological blog of any kind only get one message and thereby feel that all those people can’t be wrong. This is how they start covering the Country with their beliefs. They use lies and misinformation. Before you respond to them do a little research or know your facts and blow them out of the water! We Conservatives must be willing to unite to do this.

[Bellflower]

His tactic is to mobilize them by making them feel needed and important because he needs them. They are empty and looking for someone to make them feel like they matter.