On OFA and the Democratic Leadership

by: Hopeful

Fri Jun 11, 2010 at 02:55:02 PM EDT

The transition from being an outside-the-establishment campaign organization to being an inside-the-establishment policy promoter has not been an easy one for O.F.A. The first year was marked by widespread frustration, as volunteers tried to get their heads around the arcane changes in, say, the health care bill as it meandered its way through Congress, while simultaneously being urged not to attack members of their own party who wavered on the agenda. "Sometimes the lack of tangibility can be distressing for people," Plouffe told me. "Because they'll go out there and say: 'I worked hard. I had a press conference. I had all these people write letters to the editor. And my member of Congress voted against health care. It didn't seem to matter.' That's reality, unfortunately.

I don't doubt that some could be disappointed by this -- I was pre-disappointed and didn't waste my time on LoBiondo much. But Bai points at a much bigger problem for Plouffe. What does Plouffe think bloggers, journalists, and anyone paying attention thought when we got press releases and e-mail messages urging us to pressure Frank LoBiondo and Leonard Lance but nothing on John Adler? The important "reality" is not that Leonard Lance isn't afraid of OFA volunteers, but that OFA didn't seem to really care about the agenda. If OFA did care, they'd have pushed Adler. I think it's part of the reason health care remains weak in the polls. (As for the "arcane changes," Bai is being too polite as it was all too clear that Obama reversed himself on what were high-profile issues in the primary and general elections.)

I think there's a lesson there for Menendez and the DSCC too, sending out memos that many take to be attacking unions. Praise your nominee in Arkansas, by all means, but watch who you are attacking. I'm sure your spirits are high that the Chamber of Commerce helped your candidate, but they won't be there in the fall, and most of their ideas are terrible anyway. When the message is that what you do and how you vote is not important as long as you're already in the establishment, failure will follow quickly. It'll be all the quicker when you adopt Republican policies.