Oklahoma Democrats fundraising to keep their 50 State staffers for another month.

[madfloridian]

Good for them. I hope they are right, that the 50 State Strategy will continue sometime in the spring. The problem is that a lot of valuable staffers are being lost right now, their knowledge and data being left behind.

Fundraising retains jobs of 3 Oklahoma Democratic staffers

Funding for a Democratic National Committee program that paid their salaries for the past four years ended Sunday. Recorded fundraising phone calls still are being made to registered Democrats across the state, party Chairman Ivan Holmes said. Oklahoma County was completed Friday, he said; it could take the rest of this month to call the remaining counties.

"We’re getting eight to 10 responses a day, and they range from $30 to $100,” Holmes said. "Enough’s come in to pay their salaries for December.”

Holmes said he is confident the Democratic National Committee’s "50-State Strategy” program, which invested money in every state, would continue. Howard Dean, who developed the program, is stepping down as national party chairman. President-elect Barack Obama, who is expected to appoint Dean’s successor, appears to support the grassroots program.

Funding for the Oklahoma salaries would be approved sometime in early spring, Holmes said.

We knew the funding was ending, and Howard Dean's leaving as chair caused speculation if it would continue.

50 State Strategy apparently ending

"A rumor at this point (or rather, someone unwilling to go on record) but what I'm hearing is that the DNC organizers who implement the 50 state strategy are about to be let go. Apparently they will be laid off at the end of the month, and the new DNC chair will decide whether he or she wants to continue the 50 state policy.

Of course, there's no better way to kill the program than to let the organizers go. With them will go all the experience, a lot of the contacts and most of the trust. And many of them won't be available to be rehired.

I have no idea who made this decision, especially immediately after a year where the 50 state strategy seems to have paid off with wins in places Dems don't ordinarily win.

Good for Oklahoma for keeping theirs in place for another month.

[LiberalFighter]

1. Need to contact your DNC committee members for your state

Everyone in each state needs to first contact their county and district party officers than their DNC committee member and urge them to support continuation of the program.

[crispini]

2. K&R -- good idea

I may have to do just that.

[clear eye]

3. The buzz is the Obama people didn't work or play well w/others

Especially in states w/ smaller Democratic Party organizations. Have read a number of complaints by people who knocked themselves out since 2004 to build an organization in states w/minority Democratic registrations that the Obama people simply bypassed the state party folks, and used their own people to recruit for and run the Obama campaign there. My guess is that laying off the state organizers was a decision made by a high level Obama player like Plouffe, to whom Obama leaves decisions about tactics.

[MaineDem]

4. No, the program was always scheduled to end after the '08 election

It was in everyone's contract. It was also assumed that the program would continue.

I agree that everyone should contact the DNC, the Obama transition team, their DNC state members (including Chair and Vice Chair)to urge/beg them to keep the 50 state strategy going. We won in '06 and '08 in places we never would have without the program. States can't do this on their own and it's important that the power be in the state parties.

But I agree that there were problems with the Obama campaign people coming into states and not working well with the established campaigns.

[democrattotheend]

5. I think that's pretty typical

This is not the first time I have heard about tension between a presidential campaign staff and the state parties...I think it's pretty common. And it makes sense, since the Obama campaign started out the primary season having to build from scratch while Clinton had locked up most of the existing party structure through endorsements, especially in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. So the Obama campaign built their own field structure and it makes sense that they would not want to give that up and cede control to the state parties, particularly since the state parties had local races to worry about in addition to the presidential race and were allocating resources accordingly.

[FrenchieCat]

7. What Buzz?

do you have something to support that?

So that no one thinks that the buzz is simply coming from you.
Thanks.

[krkaufman]

6. Wasn't Obama wondering what to do with that $30 million in campaign surplus?

I'd say it should be used for program continuity. It's insane that they'd just discard the current organization and direction and let it float until some new DNC chair is selected. I'm not too impressed if this is what Dr. Dean is allowing to happen.