There have been arguments going back and forth about whether Mr. Obama should keep his campaign promise to "put on his comfortable shoes" and march with the people in Wisconsin and elsewhere whose rights to organize and collectively bargain are being threatened by Republicans carrying out the orders of extremist leaders like the billionaire Koch brothers.
Many folks seem to feel that the right thing for Mr. Obama to do is to stay aloof from the fray so as to deprive the right wingnuts of the large media target that he provides. Among the comments that I read, one of the folks who espoused this view said in that Obama was doing exactly the right thing, staying quiet and mobilizing OFA on the ground to build the movement.
Well, as it turns out, OFA was mobilized but, Mr. Obama had nothing to do with it. In fact, he was reportedly furious to find out that they were doing this.
More below the fold:
Apparently OFA was mobilized by the DNC:
As Democrats and labor unions fought Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to take away worker rights, the Democratic National Committee and the post-election arm of the Obama campaign, Organizing for America, mobilized Obama’s grassroots network in support of the protests in Madison.
OfA Wisconsin's field efforts include filling buses and building turnout for the rallies this week in Madison, organizing 15 rapid response phone banks urging supporters to call their state legislators, and working on planning and producing rallies, a Democratic Party official in Washington said.
It was a decisive moment of action from a group that has often been criticized as too passive and ineffective during critical legislative fights.
Apparently Mr. Obama's attention is elsewhere, as buried in this New York Times article about the reshuffling of Mr. Obama's closest advisors we find this (bold emphasis not in original):
White House officials say the goal is to achieve a long-term victory — by bagging a budget deal, or the credit for trying — not to win each day’s news cycle. On two successive weekends, for example, the White House passed up chances to score points against the House Republicans.
Last Saturday, Mr. Daley addressed Democratic governors who were meeting in Washington and did not even utter the word “Republican,” let alone throw partisan red meat by lambasting the House Republicans’ proposed cuts in education, health services, border control and other programs important to financially struggling states — a purposeful omission, officials said.
...
Similarly, the White House mostly has sought to stay out of the fray in Madison, Wis., and other state capitals where Republican governors are battling public employee unions and Democratic lawmakers over collective bargaining rights. When West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama’s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.
If the future that Mr. Obama is interested in winning includes a vibrant worker's movement that supports and protects working families from the depredations of marketplace exploiters and extremist right-wing ideologues, you sure wouldn't be able to discern that from Mr. Obama's tepid public support for workers nor his behind-the-scenes actions to rein in activism.
So when Mr. Obama, in full campaign mode said:
"If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner."
What he probably meant was:
"If American workers are being denied the right to organize and collectively bargain, as President I will put on my favorite fuzzy slippers and curl up in front of the teevee and marvel at their initiative until I fall asleep."
Updated by joe shikspack at Fri Mar 4, 2011, 03:06:20 PM
I ran across this blog story which presents visual evidence of OFA's efforts in Wisconsin and of the fact that on Feb 18th (the day after the story of OFA's and DNC's involvement broke on Politico) OFA's website was scrubbed of material about its involvement and officials took the line that their involvement was exaggerated by the press.