Obama's Ohio Grassroots Advantage

[dkf]

Every successful politician needs a home base, a place to go where the crowds are always friendly and the pizza is always free. For Hillary Clinton, that place of comfort in Ohio is Kamm's Corners, a neighborhood on Cleveland's west side dominated by white firefighters, cops and factory workers. One of Clinton's strongest supporters here, Pat Dorr, has driven a Buick with an "I love Hillary" bumper sticker since the mid-1990s.

Dorr became active in the Clinton campaign last week, after a national campaign staffer asked her to make phone calls. "When I first came in, there was nobody here," says Dorr, 78, who has helped so many campaigns over the years that she's lost count. "This whole week, this office was basically empty."

Home base for Barack Obama lies on the opposite side of town, in the Lee-Harvard neighborhood, home to mostly working-class African-American families. One of Obama's first volunteers here was Antoinette McCall, a substitute high school teacher who has never worked a campaign before in her life. McCall became active 11 months ago, donating what little money she could to Obama's campaign. She used Obama's website to recruit volunteers and run a phone bank from her living room. She convinced friends who own beauty salons to organize their customers, and created a database of hundreds of Obama supporters.

"It's like we had this whole movement built up before the campaign staff even got here," says McCall, 36. In a few months, McCall, a political novice, has built an organization rivaling that of some state senators who form the backbone of Clinton's establishment support. "By the time they finally opened the office," she says, "this place was packed."

As the Democratic candidates for President prepare for their debate at Cleveland State University Tuesday night, grassroots Obama supporters like McCall are the key to his having a chance on March 4 of continuing his stunning streak of 11 straight primary or caucus victories — and all but locking up the Democratic nomination. While the blue-collar Buckeye state has been viewed as part of Clinton's firewall strategy for stopping Obama's momentum, the truth is that even though she is still leading in polls, her campaign is playing catchup when it comes to the all-important job of grassroots organizing. "I'm 52, I've been around for a while, and is the most spontaneous, energetic political operation that I've ever seen," said Keith Wilkowski, a lawyer and former Democratic Party chair in Toledo.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1717150,00.html

[godai]

1. Whoever is responsible for designing the Obama campaign deserves a lot of credit.

Seems that this will serve as a model for a lot of campaigns in the future...he's got nearly 1 million contributors and as each primary comes up, it's the same story, Clinton ahead, Obama's campaign gears up, and Obama wins or is a very close second. Impressive...

[dkf]

2. Obama's campaign helped bring its people together, but its

the volunteers that are special.

They have someone organizing the volunteer provision of lunch and dinner for 60 staffers. Multiply this kind of effort by 50 states and I imagine that could save the campaign loads of $.

This is the people power that Howard Dean used to talk about.

Amazing!!

[Infinite Hope]

3. Interesting. One mistake Obama's campaign is making is calling Ohio voters on Sunday.

Never do that, especially when calling conservative areas.