“People came out of the woodwork for Obama during the campaign, but now they are hibernating... Now it is hard to find enough volunteers to fight the Republicans’ fire with more fire.”
August 15, 2009
"The president is turning to his grass-roots network — the 13 million members of Organizing for America — for support."
But somehow these people aren't all that mobilizable:
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Membership in OFA is about as substantial as being a member of Denny's Birthday Club, except that Denny's gives you food once a year.
Since Obama's election, how many of his supporters have lost their jobs?
WV: banker
You can't make this stuff up.
In all fairness, I'd like to say something good about OFA because my car wouldn't start, once, and they sent a mechanic dude inside of twenty minutes.
wv = sings. That's what Louis Prima does, does, does, does, or used to, anyway.
But she conceded that when it came time for door-to-door canvassing a few months ago — a task she has long disliked — she left town so she would not have to say no.
Ha. Even the local OFA organizer won't knock on her neighbors' doors anymore. Maybe she isn't encountering overwhelming enthusiasm for Obama and his policies.
Could this mean that the Free Money days are over for Obama's grass roots for hire?
I never got the impression that anyone liked any of Obama's policies, just that they really hated Bush. If your goal was to get rid of Bush and anyone like him, you'd feel disappointed by the Obama administration.
I hear poor black people who used to support Obama calling him a "puppet" and "just like all the others." I wonder about the Obama bumper stickers you can still see, about how many of the people who have them are just waiting to get a new car so they don't have to go through the indignity of pulling them off.
I wonder how many OFA members are now "Republicans" at town halls?
What does Obama need to do this for?
He won.
The Democrats control House, Senate and Presidency. They need not a single Republican vote.
The great unwashed causing trouble at these meetings? So what? They're Republicans, right? They lost, and they don't have the votes.
He won.
They will pass whatever they please, just like newly minted Democrat Sen. Specter.
So quit complaining while he cleans up the mess you made, and bend over. He won.
Proof that real grass is superior to astroturf.
When polls say 85% of Eskimos are happy with their ice, it is hard to sell ice to Eskimos.
Pogo:
Let me say it before Althouse does.
Obama is acting like a pussy.
They'll figure out a way to pay people to show up . . . probably using our taxes to do it. I am increasingly cynical about this administration. Every time you think the things they do or say can't get any worse... they do. Ditto with the media.
(the other kev)
Did Ann get her notice? Let us know where she's supposed to show!
The president is turning to his grass-roots network....
This after turning to congress for round 1.
How'd that work for ya, Barak?
(wv brecomb - coiffure pour le fromage)
There are several reasons for the disappearance of Obama's army:
1. His appeal was as a celebrity, and governance issues are not interesting to people who are essentially fans with iPods & iPhones.
2. He feels like a bait-and-switch fraud to most of us. He is in fact not doing what he said he would do--bipartisanship, calm, rational, fact-based decisions, neither a liberal nor a conservative, etc., etc.. So, apart from the apparatchiks at The New Republic, The Nation, and The American Prospect (and Paul Krugman, of course), he is just not very appealing anymore.
3. Young people, his primary demographic, are not motivated by health care issues--they are too invulnerable and immortal.
The net result of being a great candidate is that you have to serve when elected.
Troublesome, isn't it?
All those folks who loved the concept of Obama are now seeing the Brack in Barrack.
"All those folks who loved the concept of Obama"
obama's a concept
by which we measure
our pain.
i'll say it again.
obama's a concept
by which we measure
our pain.
i don't believe in magic...
I'm one of the 13 million, and I'm on the other side. Probably a big percentage of that number are people who signed up on a whim, or people who were against Obama but wanted to get the emails for whatever nefarious purpose.
I vaguely recall that the original campaign site hid some info behind a sign-up wall. I wanted details on a local Obama campaign appearance, but I had to sign up to get it. Mile wide, inch deep.
Obama already is turning to paid "volunteers" because like Brian said, mile wide inch deep.
Obama was to his minions a candidate, not an everything.
Make Money!
So quit complaining while he cleans up the mess you made, and bend over. He won.
Can I lube up first? Have mercy!
Some people like dating better than marriage.
Obama's Organizing for America thing actually creeps me out a bit.
Probably because it's... organized.
And also because it seems a whole lot like circumventing the chain of command... but backwards. Or something.
I think this is one of those "What if Bush had done this?" sort of things. We got on Bush's case for failing to convince the people, failing to win us over, and not *communicating* well. So maybe Obama figures he's going to do a good job of this and take it all right to the people... skip everything in between.
It makes me uncomfortable... sort of like Zelaya planning to circumvent the constitution and laws and entire government of Honduras by having "the people" vote him President for life directly... and OBAMA SUPPORTED HIM.
Obama didn't even drop the support when computers with certified results showing that Zelaya won that vote were found before the date of the planned election had arrived.
A candidate, even a president, should appeal to the people in an election directly, but a president in possession of "his" 13 million organized loyalists is creepy.
(I'd bring up the Hitler Youth but I'm afraid Glenn Beck must have already done so, sometime, and I'd hate to be accused of channeling Glenn Beck!)
wv: derkbad, Strongbad's long lost brother.
The left wing touts Obama's "superior organization skills" as somehow proof of his inherent superiority AND morality! Never mind that Adolf Hitler was the ultimate organizer.
Maybe they need to be reminded that Democrats are fans of disruptors.
It's heartening to me that so many millions of people were taken in by BHO. Now all I have to do is find some way to get them to send me money.
Say, if anyone would like to do a good turn, I need others to look up people and groups that might be going to townhalls and get them to ask variants of this question. None of the questions I've seen have been any good, and most of the "questions" were just rants. If anyone wants to actually do something effective, ask that question or at least contact one group that might be able to ask it. I can't do everything myself, but that's basically what's happening because the leaders of the supposed opposition to BHO are just encouraging their followers to act like baboons instead of doing things that are effective.
IMO, the question of illegal aliens doesn't have much traction *because* no one thinks that anyone isn't going to serve them one way or another. Better to get them out of emergency rooms, huh? Is there any proposal that involves refusing anyone care? We don't do that *now* no matter the rhetoric about how many people in the US do not have health care.
Synova: of course the wider issue has "traction". It has a tremendous amount of "traction" because it touches on many other issues. The reason you may not hear much about this is because a) politicians and the MSM don't want to talk about it except in their illegal activity-supporting terms, and b) their opponents can't get it together to oppose those politicians and the MSM in an effective way.
In the current case, given that those pulling the strings on the teaparties and the townhall protests support MassiveImmigration, they aren't about to tell their charges to go out and embarrass politicians over this issue.
As for solving the issue, it's easy to state: simply enforce our laws. Getting politicians to do that wouldn't be that difficult if people would simply do what I've been trying to get them to do for over two years. See the link in my first comment for just the latest attempt.
lucid said...
There are several reasons for the disappearance of Obama's army:
1-3 XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Adding to lucid's 3 reasons:
1. Many Jews and liberal whites saw electing Obama as critical to prove themselves apologetic for slavery, racism. They were only motivated to elect him to prove their own worthiness. Now elected, the Jews and liberal whites feel they are morally redeemed, guilt expunged. So their passion for Atonment through Raising The One is now complete. They feel good about themselves. Good enough to Moveon!
2. Blacks voted from tribal pride in a half-white guy raised white, no slave ancestors, annoited to the Elites while still in his 20s. who claimed he was a real black.
Baracks "black ancestors" had a net collective time of 5 1/2 years in America..only his feckless biodaddy, who tended to avoid American blacks and socialize and work only with whites and "intellectual elites" in Hawaii and at Harvard.
Perhaps they thought they would get mo' free pork chops!
But the pork has gone to labor unions, environmentalists, moneyed Elites of Wall Street and Corporations, and Algore-allied business leaders instead.
Blacks are thinking now that Obama isn't so black after all, just one of those blacks who made it and never really looked back. And not so "authentic" after all.
Leave it to Alex to bring up another dumb Hitler analogy to Obama. One not at all true, BTW.
Alex said...
The left wing touts Obama's "superior organization skills" as somehow proof of his inherent superiority AND morality! Never mind that Adolf Hitler was the ultimate organizer.
Hitler was a "Big Ideas Guy", a true war hero, and a mesmerizing public speaker. He had no interest in details of organizing anything..be left that for others.
Whereas Obama is a community organizer and a mesmerizing public speaker when assisted by a TelePrompter.
lucid,
I find myself mystified that you ever thought Zero ever would do what he said he would. What in his resume and background ever led you to believe him in the first place.
He promised bipartisanship and he went out of his way not to be bipartisan. He had no executive experience. He named people to responsible positions who were gulty of not being responsible for their own actions, like paying taxes.
Just do not see what you ever saw in him in the first place. Was it that he could read a teleprompter real good?
Synova,
The lead article in today's Boston Globe was that Mass was going to withhold healthcare for immigrants. The article didn't mention whether this was legal or illegal immigrants but it implied that it was illegal immigrants. Better be. If the legal immigrants pay their taxes and have their green cards, then they should be entitled to healthcare just as if they were citizens. Illegal immigrants should be kicked out.
Wonder if Mass is going to withhold medical care from Zero's auntie.
WV: degerie - reminds me of the old Aussie song.
I obviously misunderstand what "grass roots" means.
The Republicans here would really benefit from reading this post from Steve Benen, quoting from an email conversation with former Bush / Reagan official Bruce Bartlett.
Bartlett:
political parties should do penance for their mistakes and just losing power is not enough. Part of that involves understanding why those mistakes were made and how to prevent them from happening again. Republicans, however, have done no penance. They just pretend that they did nothing wrong. But until they do penance they don't deserve any credibility and should be ignored until they do. .
Benen:
I suppose the word that keeps coming to mind is "consequences." The Republican Party of the Bush era failed in ways few have even tried, burdening the nation with challenges and crises that are difficult to address and painful to even think about. They believe, however, there should be no consequences for this. There's no need, they say, to alter their political beliefs at all. Indeed, they see their main goal as the loyal opposition to undermine efforts to clean up the mess they left. They're the arsonists hoping to convince the public not to have confidence in the fire department.
Alpha--
That would work just as well for Dems. If you have even a shred of integrity, you can see that.
And you'll be able to see it next year, when your team gets kicked in the ass.
Blake, Democrats won last November. That kind of shoots the whole premise of Republican Bruce Bartlett's comment.
If you have even a shred of integrity, you can see that.
Yeah, I know. Like talking to a wall. But I try.
Try making your case, then. You didn't actually present logic, just an assertion of false equivalence.
Why shouldn't Republicans take the voters' judgment into account?
When they were so soundly rejected by the American voters and continue to push the very same policies that the voters rejected, why should we continue to take Republicans seriously? (Especially when they act like 3-year olds)?
This video captures the frustration one can find trying to find a good argument in Althousiana.
Alpha,
The Reps learned a lesson in '94. They then forgot it by...well, generously, we could say 2002, but '98 might be more realistic. There's no reason they can't re-learn that lesson in four years (starting in 2006)--and maybe take it seriously this time?
What lesson did the Dems learn? They got thrown out for trying to -- what was it? Oh! Yeah, socialize medicine.
What is it they're doing now?
Blake, try again, without deflecting. This is 2009. The election at question is the November 2008 election. You curiously dodged that one
To answer your question, in the 2009 election the health care debate was a key issue before the electorate.
And the electorate spoke and demanded change. And, yea, the Republicans are throwing a hissy fit and effectively telling the electorate to go stuff it.
Though it's really all about Rs refusing to accept Ds in the White House.
The Republicans do need to change their ways.
People did attempt to punish them by not voting for them.
I doubt any of that is in dispute. But *this* " There's no need, they say, to alter their political beliefs at all. Indeed, they see their main goal as the loyal opposition to undermine efforts to clean up the mess they left." embeds the assumption that there is only one direction to alter political beliefs. It assumes the wrong things about what Republican voters and independents who vote Republican were punishing Republicans *for*.
No one was punishing Republicans for not spending ENOUGH.
Alpha:
Just because Republicans lost the election in 2008 to a con man does not mean that we have to vote for said con man's Neo-Socialist Agenda.
Screw him. Screw Bruce Bartlett, too. If Bartlett wants to bend over, grab his ankles, and let Obama fuck him up the ass, then so be it. I see no reason to let the Obamist Agenda of Socialism in One Country and disarmament, not to mention grovelling in the face of Saudi Kings, get past us without a fight.
Obama is overreaching and he's going to get his ass kicked next year. You don't like this prospect and are whining that Republicans aren't falling in line like good little Red Guards.
Too fucking bad. Sarah Palin just took Obama's milk money, too. That was a joy to behold.
Go back and reread your Saul Alinsky. It's what Republicans are reading with dinner.
And the electorate spoke and demanded change.
So, in your view, Obama has carte blanche? And the electorate is not allowed to change its mind for four years?
Funny, I don't recall you being that supportive of Bush.
@3:01 Dick wonders if Mass is going to withhold medical care from Zero's auntie.
She moved. I think she is in the upper midwest someplace.
And the electorate spoke and demanded change.
And they got it. The deficit, the national debt, the unemployment rate, and the economy have all changed a LOT in the last seven months.
Some of the electorate is probably thinking "maybe, when we said we wanted change, we should have been more specific". :)
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