For Obama, Redefining Grass Roots Via the Web

For Obama, Redefining Grass Roots Via the Web

By Peter Slevin and Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 31, 2007; A01

DES MOINES -- In Sen. Barack Obama's Iowa headquarters, young staff members sit at computers, analyzing online voter data and targeting potential backers. They zip one e-mail to an undecided voter and zap a different message to a firm supporter.

Depending on the voter, they follow with Facebook reminders, telephone calls, text messages and, most important, house visits. The effort will culminate in what state director Steve Hildebrand calls "the largest grass-roots volunteer operation that Iowa has ever seen."

Whether Hildebrand's boast proves true on Thursday, Obama's campaign has taken a markedly different approach to identifying its supporters and getting them to the caucuses than those of his two main opponents, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

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If the Internet is like a big grocery store, Obama's aides made sure he appeared on every aisle. As some campaign workers built mailing lists and telephone trees according to political, professional and personal interests, others created the first groups and profiles on sites as varied as Eons, the MySpace for baby boomers, and LinkedIn, a site mostly for white-collar professionals.

They also used BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com, AsianAve.com and GLEE.com -- the MySpace and Facebook for, respectively, the African American, Latino, Asian and gay online communities. They have posted more than 350 videos on his YouTube channel, twice as many as Clinton, and his videos have been viewed nearly twice as often as hers. Obama has more MySpace friends than any other Democratic candidate, and he lists more Facebook supporters than all other Democrats combined.

Looking ahead to caucus day, the campaign is setting up a "catch-all queue," in which caucus-goers could get an answer within minutes after texting a question such as "Where's my precinct in Des Moines?"

Four years ago, another Democrat, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, came into the Iowa caucuses as "the Internet candidate" and finished third, all but ending his candidacy. Obama's campaign flatly rejects that comparison, arguing that today's Web is vastly different, that Iowa is much more wired, that they have learned that electronic touches are only part of the picture.

"We don't think we could be any more different than the Dean campaign," said Hildebrand, a veteran political strategist. "We get everyone who signs up with us online to get involved in person. It's not just a computer-to-computer relationship -- it's a person-to-person relationship. This is Iowa, after all."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/30/AR2007123002795_pf.html

I just joined Team Obama. I am glad you posted this. Such a great read....

shelf space, thanks to Oprah - who, btw, also brought you Dr. Phil, aka the epitome of overly-hyped incompetent Psychobabblers ... Knocking out better persons with hype/placement/dollars.

That wasn't grassroots fault. Howard Dean is a very intelligent, witty and personable man. Someone wanted him out of the way, a way was found through media framing.

I will say that the warning against insularity within the net grassroots movement is timely. I wince to see people surround themselves only with people who think just like them, convincing themselves that 'The Other' is soulless and worthless and ultimately irrelevant. I wonder how many voters exclusively get their news from and base their opinions upon the net grassroots, however? or care?

I'd like to see a poll on that.

I am a little wary of how many people are crowing about polls as if polls actually mean something. They do not. Results matter, not polls... particularly in the case of Obama, right or wrong.

Yep, that's the ticket exactly. I bite my tongue.

:hide:

Just kidding. If internet opinion translated into action, well, more DU posts would be useful. :D

That's why it's different than Dean's.

:thumbsup: