By John Ballard
All you disillusioned Barack Obama former-supporters get a box of Kleenex, a glass and a bottle of your favorite beverage as you read this by Micah Sifry at Tech President.
The truth is that Obama was never nearly as free of dependence on big money donors as the reporting suggested, nor was his movement as bottom-up or people-centric as his marketing implied. And this is the big story of 2009, if you ask me, the meta-story of what did, and didn't happen, in the first year of Obama's administration. The people who voted for him weren't organized in any kind of new or powerful way, and the special interests--banks, energy companies, health interests, car-makers, the military-industrial complex--sat first at the table and wrote the menu. Myth met reality, and came up wanting. [Emphasis added JB]
In terms of the early money that was raised by his campaign in 2007--and this is the most influential money in politics--more than one-third (36%) of his total came from the financial sector (compared to 28% for Hillary Clinton), reported campaign finance expert Thomas Ferguson. Between January and August 2007, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, 60% of Obama's donations were in amounts of $1000 or more--a smaller proportion than Clinton, but still a majority of his crucial early funding. In terms of Obama's overall funding, nearly half of his donations came from people giving $1000 or more.
Should we really surprised that someone with so much early support from Wall Street and wealthy elites overall might not be inclined to throw the money-changers out of the temple?
[...]
I learned a lot from The Audacity to Win, especially about the personal sacrifices Plouffe made over the course of the campaign, in terms of separation from his family, and also about how the world of politics appears from the highest bubble in a campaign structure. Plouffe also writes in detail about how he and the rest of the senior leadership of the campaign developed their overall strategy, how they determined that they needed to build an alternative power structure to challenge "the strongest establishment front-runner in our party's history" (p. 21), and how that led them to emphasize building a vast cadre of campaign volunteers who were expected to be small donors, local organizers and message spreaders. Plouffe also doles out all kinds of delicious tidbits about the twists and turns of the campaign sure to delight any politics junkie.
[...]
...Plouffe and the rest of Obama's leadership team, wasn't really interested in grassroots empowerment. Instead, they think they've invented a 21st century version of list-building, and to some degree they're right. (It's for that reason that I think of the Obama campaign as the first 21st century top-down campaign, while McCain's was the last 20th century top-down version). For Plouffe, the gigantic Obama email list, its millions of donors and its vibrant online social network were essentially a new kind of top-down broadcast system, one even better than the old TV-dominated system. Near the end of his book he writes:
"Our e-mail list had reached 13 million people. We had essentially created our own television network, only better, because we communicated with no filter to what would amount to about 20 percent of the total number of votes we would need to win...And those supporters would share our positive message or response to an attack, whether through orchestrated campaign activity like door-knocking or phone calling or just in conversations they had each day with friends, family, and colleagues."[Emphasis added] (p. 364)
[...]
When it came to planning for being in government, it turns out that Plouffe, along with David Axelrod, was a chief advocate for bringing in then Rep. Rahm Emanuel as Obama's chief of staff. He writes, using a baseball analogy: "Rahm was a five-tool political player: a strategist with deep policy expertise, considerable experience in both the legislative and executive branches, and a demeanor best described as relentless." (p. 372) Note that nowhere in that vital skill-set is any sense of how to work with the largest volunteer base any presidential campaign has developed in history. Rahm Emanuel came up in politics the old-fashioned way; organizing and empowering ordinary people are the least of his skills.
That should be enough to whet the appetite.
Lots more at the link, most of which I have yet to read and watch, including a forty-minute video of an interview of Plouffe by Ari Melber of The Nation.
You want the truth? You want the truth? You. Can't. Handle. The Truth!
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Tom Watson is one helluva good journalist. He doesn't blog much or put out reams of wallpaper (like so many of us) but when you read what Tom Watson says you can take it to the bank. When Tom Watson speaks I listen.
Voted for him (but only because McCain ran with Palin, otherwise i would have voted 3rd party like i usually do). Never sent him a dime, never wore a pin, went to a rally, or slapped on a bumper sticker.
ReplyDeleteBut what i take from this post is that his supporters were/are pretty much fools and tools, because he wasn't/isn't any different than any other corrupt politician in the fetid swamp of our nation's capitol...regardless of what he ceaselessly told us.
I'm still confused though, should i be happy about that? Support that? Subsist on political table scraps and slight corrections to the course of a bus headed for a cliff...even though the course corrections only change exactly where we'll launch from?
I can only speak for myself and have no intention of telling anyone else how to think. I did not have the exaggerated expectations of most and said so. My support of Barack Obama was two-fold: after doing very little homework I discovered he was a superior manager and able agent of conflict resolution, and I saw no one else other than Hillary Clinton who had a chance to win.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone slogging around in fetid swamps is part of the ecology. Some are trying to work in a nasty environment to bring about improvements and I believe to this moment that he is such a man. When civilians become warriors they join missions far bigger than any they imagined. And when faced with the reality of combat they learn that the idea of death and dying is not all it was advertised to be. Similarly, I cannot imagine the culture shock of becoming president.
I am absolutely persuaded that Obama's mind, heart and goals are as close to my own as anyone in public life. He is faced with formidable obstacles to achieving them, many of which have stopped lesser men more years than I have been alive. He will continue to have my support until someone comes along with an even loftier vision coupled with the political savvy to make it happen. Until then I'm not throwing stones.
This post is not a stone. It is a reality check for civilians facing combat. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
Did that research include reading the interviews with his Harvard Law Review compatriots who indicated that he's terrible at making decisions?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but all i've seen of him after the very early primaries and all my research suggests (and this seems to be playing out) that he's very much like Bill Clinton. That does nothing at all for me.
Sorry, but the war analogy for domestic politics is exactly what makes this country so fucked up because it can do nothing but pit the American people against each other for the sake of parties and political personalities.
There will never be total victory or surrender, only death and devastation from continuing to follow the "politics as war/battle" model. Moreover, the Democrats are horrible strategists and tacticians...so they'll continue to lose if they keep playing that game.
Lex, you and I have a difference of opinion. Now that the election is history I see no need to argue.
ReplyDeleteIf you really want to know something about my research, here is a link to a post I published three years ago. The two-year-long comments thread traces my thinking. And A Law Professor discusses Cloning and Other Matters (July 2008) is my favorite, an exam by Professor Obama for his law students when he was on faculty at the University of Chicago.
Whatever I or anyone else thinks now is irrelevant. Plouffe's book and interview underscore the administration's transparency to a shocking degree. He is Obama's Carl Rove. That alone is a departure from how politics has been done in the past and I am very impressed.