Or the 5,080 things. Or the 53 things. I'm talking about the "insane" Obama campaign strategy: running a grassroots field program in California. Can't be done, right? Too big, too expensive, not worth it. He's doing it anyway. And I love being part of it.
Here's just a few of the elements: 100,000 phone calls statewide in a single day. 5,080 precinct captains. Volunteer-based organizing teams across California's 53 congressional districts. Canvasses and phone calls up and down the state.
I can tell you (and I have) about the many reasons I am volunteering basically all of my free time to try to make Barack Obama the next President of the United States. But the way he genuinely believes in running a grassroots, 50-state primary campaign is a huge one.
And it is perhaps (with apologies to Just Angry for borrowing your title) the only thing you need to know about Barack Obama.
Last summer, I came to a campaign organizing meeting in Oakland for Congressional District 9 - Barbara Lee's District. (I'm proud that she's endorsed Barack Obama.) At that meeting, I found out about the plans for California: multiple levels of volunteer-based organizing teams in every CD across the state, all the way down to the precinct level. I also learned something I didn't know: California allocates the majority of its primary votes by CD (with the remaining percentage for the statewide winner). So having a structure keyed to those CD's seemed smart to me.
I walked out of that meeting with my name, phone number, and e-mail address scribbled on a big sheet of paper taped to the wall that said something like "North Oakland/Emeryville." That fateful decision has landed me squarely in the middle of the most exciting Presidential campaigns in California in more than a generation. I haven't posted much lately - because I now seem to spend most of my free waking hours helping organize volunteers across CD-9 to phone bank and canvass for the campaign. And although I am now working well beyond what I actually signed up to do that day, I couldn't be happier.
Right now my week is all about this Saturday: one day, 100,000 phone calls statewide. Apparently, it will be the largest single-day phone bank in California history. (Click here to volunteer at one of the 50 statewide locations). This is a huge undertaking, but I think our field organization, and the massive volunteer enthusiasm I witness every day here, can get it done. And if we do, it is more than just the number of phone calls that makes this a different kind of campaign event.
You see, no one organizes California this way for a Presidential Primary. From today's SF Chronicle, Obama augments ads with network of volunteers:
For generations, politicians with cash have campaigned one way in statewide races in California: Carpet bomb voters with TV ads and fill their mailboxes with direct mail. But the Barack Obama campaign is trying something different, something that that even its top organizers jokingly say is "insane" to try in a state that's 163,695 square miles broad: They're approaching voters as a community organizer might. Neighborhood by neighborhood, precinct by precinct, block by block.
That's right - precinct captains. In California.
This sounds a lot like how Howard Dean describes the 50 State Strategy:
Election by election, state by state, precinct by precinct, door by door, vote by vote . . . . we're going to lift our Party up and take this country back for the people who built it.
Seems that kid oakland agrees.
And as I have argued before:
State by state, precinct by precinct - that describes Obama For America right now, before a single primary vote has been cast. Barack Obama is not running an Iowa strategy, or even an Early States strategy. He is running a broad campaign in multiple states simultaneously, building field offices and infrastructure and training a huge cadre of volunteers. And in doing this he is going deep into red state country. If he wins the nomination, the next day he will have a national campaign, ready to go, and people fired up in a lot of places Democrats don't usually even bother campaigning.
Here in California, we take the precinct-by-precinct, door by door vote by vote part of that extremely seriously. We are going to reach out and personally touch as many voters as we possibly can. Placing a premium on making a direct and authentic connection with individual voters gives our campaign a radically different feel and orientation. Barack Obama as a candidate has framed his campaign around "change," and that starts with changing how Democrats campaign at the national level. Of course you need to run a lot of paid media in California. Of course you want to use mailers. But the heart and soul of the California campaign is old-fashioned retail politics, and thousands of volunteers - many of whom have never before been moved to work for a political candidate.
That last part of it, moving people from apathy to active engagement in politics, is the signature aspect of this campaign across the country. And it is no accident. Senator Obama has made it a deliberate strategy from the beginning to build an alternate political power structure. He wants as many individual, small dollar donors as possible to "own" the campaign. He honors volunteers, organizers and activists at every juncture. He believes in maximizing political participation among ordinary citizens and an open, transparent governing process. This is the pathway to not just talking about change, but making it happen in a system that right now is stacked against it:
Many of Obama's best-known accomplishments involve maximizing citizen engagement in politics. From the new Obama-Coburn Watchdog Database, to campaign finance reform, to his proposal to essentially put the federal government's business on the web in real time, he has always placed a premium on reforms that increase citizen involvement and engagement. Even some of his critics recognize his leadership and innovation on this score.
Citizen participation is the check and balance on keeping big powerful economic interests from running the show. Obama isn't afraid of having them at the table as long as all of us are watching over his shoulder. It is the ability to manipulate policy in secret that gives them so much power. As he frequently says on the campaign trail: "When it comes to what is wrong with America, the American people are not the problem. They are the answer."
I was struck by the phone-banking party for the other campaign depicted in that SF Chronicle article. 9 people, over two hours, making less than 30 phone calls, while dining on an elegant repast. I also understand that other campaign has a Bay Area field office with rows of gleaming new computers. Good for them.
Our Oakland office looks and feels a lot like the many nonprofit, shoestring budget operations I have been privileged to be a part of in my lifetime. People walk in and wonder where all that Obama money is going. It's going to as many field offices as possible, in every single February 5 state. It's being spread far and wide across California. So we are working among borrowed and mismatched tables and chairs, with maps, lists, and scribbles on sheets of paper plastered to the wall, along with volunteer photos, news clips and inspirational quotes from our candidate. We have a steady diet of cold pizza, random donated leftovers and more coffee than is good for you. (That other campaign calls this a "corporate" phone banking operation. Ha!)
But I love being there with those borrowed tables and chairs filled to overflowing. Let me tell you about the senior citizens who come by every day to make phone calls. And the people who stop in on their lunch hour. The high school and college students who come in huge groups. Any one of them puts up more than 30 phone calls personally every time they come in. They are so excited about this campaign and this candidate. That's what builds long term, large scale movements for change. After February 5, I think a surprising number of them will stick around. This cadre of trained, motivated and engaged people is Obama's gift to the progressive movement in California (and many other states).
I am under no illusions. Clinton has huge institutional advantages in this state. The last Field poll puts us 12 points back. But we're gaining ground. And that poll shows 20 percent of Californians are still undecided. Over the next 13 days, we will talk to as many of them as possible, one on one, on the phone and at their doors, about why Barack Obama should be the next President of the United States. We will fight for as many delegates as possible in California - CD by CD, precinct by precinct, vote by vote. And no matter what happens, we will have made a difference.
Disclaimer: I am a volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign in California, but when I post here I speak for myself and not for the campaign in any way. The campaign has had no input on this diary. The ideas, and all the words in it, are my own.
UPDATE: Lots of you are asking in the comments how to do something for the campaign even if you aren't already part of a group or near a field office.
Go to the Action Center to phonebank from home or find volunteer groups near you: http://my.barackobama.com/...
Sign up to be a California Precinct Captain and you will be able to phone and canvass voters in your neighborhood with tools you can access online: http://my.barackobama.com/...