While the Republican contenders and pretenders debated in the Granite State, the Obama Campaign quietly kicked off what it hopes will be a “summer of team building” with an online volunteer briefing. Organizing for America’s Mitch Stewart led the largely unsurprising session, sketching out the campaign’s overall plan for recruiting volunteers and getting out the vote. There were, however, some tactical points that were worth noting.
Just like the 2008 incarnation of the Obama campaign – and, really, any organization worth its salt – Obama/Biden ’12 seems rightly obsessed with amassing volunteers and securing firm commitments to action. The central effort seemed to be a push to ask volunteers to host house parties, recruiting After Stewart’s overview of the basics, the webinar asked participants whether they could either host or attend a house party (along with inviting others to attend as well).
The neatest part came at the end, when participants were invited to turn on their webcams. A collage of the real-time feeds allowed participants to see and even wave to each other:
This is another early preview of what figures to be a consistent theme for Obama ’12. Remember that the announcement video for the re-election effort did not feature the candidate, instead focusing on campaign surrogates and volunteers. Other faces – including, wherever possible, those of grassroots supporters – will allow the Obama campaign to create a wall of separation between the candidate and the dirty business of politics.
The result? Obama looks Presidential while his subordinates ramp up the country’s first billion-dollar campaign.
Jim Eltringham 