Obama's Battalions: 3,600 Organizing Fellows Deploy Tomorrow

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Friday June 13, 2008 · 6:33 AM PDT

2008/06/13 · 06:33

When the Obama Organizing Fellowship was announced, many debated the potential for this program. Why wasn't it a paid position? Would it attract a significant amount of people?

Today, word is out that Barack Obama's Organizing Fellows will be comprised of essentially a dozen or so Battalions I think John McCain just read this and I think it's time John McCain Changes his Depends...

Moving to harness the grass-roots energy that helped win the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign will deploy 3,600 volunteers in 17 states this weekend, each committed to six consecutive weeks of full-time political work.

More than 10,000 people applied, said Obama strategist Jon Carson.

"They didn't have to have campaign experience before," said Buffy Wicks, the director of the campaign's national volunteer program. "The best organizers are people who are passionate about what they're doing. We were looking for folks who had really compelling stories."

That's an average of 211 people per state, though they will probably load up bigger states like Ohio while easier states like New Jersey won't need quite as many... This is in addition to whatever actual paid staff are arriving in states. Yesterday in Houston, David Axelrod promised that Texas would receive 15 Paid Staff in the coming days to organize further the Vote for Change efforts, basically providing material direction to existing Grass Roots Infrastructure.

Today with this news that there will be 3,600 Obama Organizing Fellows, WORKING FOR FREE, and for 6 weeks, one has to gawk honestly.... I believe at it's height the campaign had 900 or so employees. The lasting effect of these 3,600 volunteers will be felt for years. And the best part is this is just the beach head, there will be MANY MORE coming in one month.

The 17 States getting Obama's Orgazining Fellows' Battalions?

Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Iowa
Michigan
Missouri
North Carolina
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
Nevada
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin

A video from Barack on the Program

Game. Set. Match.

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