"I think Obama is sitting on a volcano."

[Pirate Smile]

Obama's Permanent Grass-Roots Campaign

By Michael Scherer / Owings, Md. Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009

For Kenneth Richardson II of Owings, Md., Barack Obama's election-night victory was not the end but the beginning. "We can't let this go," the 58-year-old father of three remembers thinking. "People feel invested. They feel they can actually do something." So he did. A couple of weeks after the confetti settled, he posted an alert on MyBarackObama.com proposing a new activist group in Calvert County, a rural exurb of Washington where the rolling farmland is dotted by weathered barns and crab shacks. Complete strangers signed up. A retired Air Force pilot, Phil Pfanschmidt, and his wife Joyce, both 71, came to the first meeting in December. So did Chris Melendez, a self-employed art dealer who lives about 30 miles away. Richardson's old motorcycle buddy Al Leandre brought his wife, a public-school teacher, and passed the word to some friends he had met through his government-contracting business. With a few clicks of a mouse, the Owings Grass Roots Group was born.

They were white and black, old and young, middle-class professionals who shared a collective frustration with the state of their country. At least four of the founding 12 had once been registered Republicans. Most had stories of helping the Obama campaign; all had internalized Obama's message of bottom-up, people-powered political change. "For anything that is going on in southern Maryland, Barack Obama personally can have an impact — through us," explained Leandre. (See pictures of Barack Obama on Flickr.)
This sort of thing has been happening quietly all over the country this winter. For the first time in decades, a President will enter office at the spearhead of a social movement he created. The exact size can be measured in various ways. He controls a 13 million-name e-mail list, which is nearly the size of the NRA and the AFL-CIO combined. Three million people have given him money; 2 million have created profiles on Obama's social-networking site. More than 1.2 million volunteered for the campaign, which has trained about 20,000 in the business of community organizing.

But the best measurement of Obama's grass-roots power may still be its unrealized potential. In December, when the Owings group first met, about 4,500 house parties were held around the country, and a total of 550,000 people responded to an online survey asking how they would like to contribute their time and energy over the coming years. At about the same time, nearly 5,000 groups responded to a call from Obama's transition team for reports on the best ways to tackle health-care reform. More recently, some 100,000 people participated in an interactive feature on the transition website Change.gov, which allows people to vote on questions they want Obama to answer. Some popular examples: Will you legalize marijuana? Will you appoint a prosecutor to investigate possible Bush Administration crimes? All this was done with almost no publicity and barely a whisper of encouragement from Obama himself. As a scholar of online politics, Personal Democracy Forum's Micah Sifry, puts it, "I think Obama is sitting on a volcano."

-snip-
Though few talk in public about it, a 13 million-man army, with foot soldiers ready to act in key congressional districts, could come in handy if the White House has trouble lining up votes for various bills and proposals that reach Capitol Hill. Obama's army can make a lot of phone calls and send a lot of e-mails — and it has proved it knows how to act fast. Rallying support for legislation is one mission; so is making sure the army is intact — and still writing checks — in a few years, when Obama is likely to seek re-election.
While his supporters seek out ways to stay involved, Obama's team is working to connect with citizens outside politics. Buffy Wicks, who helped run Obama's Missouri campaign, has spent the past couple of months putting together a new website, USAservice.org, designed to capitalize on Obama's call for Americans to volunteer in the days before the Inauguration. Even James Dobson's conservative Focus on the Family, no friend of Obama's campaign, is encouraging members to participate.

Meanwhile, at the transition office, Macon Phillips, 30, the director of new media, has been experimenting with other ways to remake the stodgy White House website. The new transition website invites comments at nearly every turn, with regular video responses from all ranks of Obama's incoming Administration and a promise to collate feedback into reports for policymakers, Cabinet officers, even the President. Citizens can view and comment on briefing papers submitted by the interest groups that have been lobbying Obama ever since he won the election. Most of these interactive devices will be carried over to the Obama White House site. Asked if all this feedback would really reach decision makers, Phillips responded, "I wouldn't enjoy my job if I felt the whole thing was a charade."

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1871767,00.html

[NashVegas]

1. It's a Better Description to Say He's Riding a Wave

The movement was already there, in collections of groups, waiting for its candidate.

It's an interesting position to be in.

[MADem]

3. I think your assessment is far more accurate. NT

[Solomon]

4. Well he always said, "we are the ones we've been waiting for."

[MADem]

5. Yep--we've always been here. He was right. nt

[Waiting For Everyman]

2. This is very underestimated so far.

It's going to be formidable, I think. And what I like is, that there will be communication going both ways - from the roots to Obama, but also from him back. I think he's going to be a force to be reckoned with, and I think he's going to keep listening to the roots. Maybe that's why I'm not so skeptical about him as some are. I don't believe he created that network just for fundraising, but really and truly for change.

[Pirate Smile]

6. kick

[alwysdrunk]

7. I hope to god it doesn't get wasted

I thought about this a lot towards the end of the campaign. All of this energy and potential, so many people ready and willing to do something. I hope he doesn't neglect this. This can be a world changing point in history if he directs all of this energy in the right way.

[RandomKoolzip]

8. Nah. As soon as people start seeing their personal political momentum

blocked by corporate interests, as they'll inevitably be, they'll go back to being their apathetic, cynical selves again. Anyone remember the film 'Meet John Doe?"

[The Doctor.]

9. But that's also how the fighters evolve.

Some may take a knee, but there will be plenty that recognize the paradigm and decide to fight instead.

[glitch]

10. Or, the volcano erupts... It does occasionally. nt

[AllentownJake]

12. Yes if the economy gets back on track and people return to their comfortable middle class jobs

If not...watch out.

[AllentownJake]

11. He's keeping campaign staff

Not as many as from the election but I heard a rumor there will be 3-4 Obama people in PA.

People wondered what was going to be done with that campaign surplus...there is your answer.

[mogster]

13. This is so fun to watch

It's democracy working :-)