Obama more focused on building the Democratic Party than any other candidate in recent history.

It's His Party

Barack Obama might be running on a post-partisan platform, but he is more focused on building the Democratic Party than any other candidate in recent history.

Dana Goldstein and Ezra Klein | August 18, 2008


An unassuming building at 430 South Capitol Street, in a forlorn corner between the Capitol and a highway overpass, is the home address of the Democratic Party. But though mail still gets delivered to the Washington, D.C., address, many of the Democratic National Committee's employees--the men and women who make up the party's central infrastructure--are no longer around to receive it. They are in Chicago, where Barack Obama moved them after he captured the Democratic Party's nomination.

It was a peculiar decision for Obama, who had built his campaign, and even his political identity, around an eloquently stated, post-partisan revulsion with the divisiveness of modern party politics. Following the strategy of "outsider" candidates before him, Obama set his headquarters outside the District in order to create distance, both physical and perceptual, between himself and the consultants, interest groups, party hacks, and congressional busybodies who populate the nation's capital.

The effort was so successful that some feared the Obama phenomenon--the millions of young people passionate about his campaign, the thousands who have lined roadsides just to wave at the Illinois senator's motorcade--had become a force unto itself, indifferent to the fortunes of the traditional Democratic Party, unbound by a commitment to progressive ideology, and wholly dependent on the character of Barack Obama. As blogger Matt Stoller writes on OpenLeft.com, "Power and money in the Democratic Party is being centralized around a key iconic figure. is consolidating power within the party."

This was a new critique of Obama: not that he was beyond parties but that he had personalized them. That rather than building the Democratic Party, he was building an Obama Party, with all the good and bad that that centralization entailed. Though some were nervous when Obama sent the moving trucks to South Capitol Street, further tightening his hold over the party apparatus, the relocation neatly fit the broader, and rather unexpected, reality of this campaign: For all the talk of post-partisan "unity," Barack Obama has been proving himself the most party-focused presidential candidate in recent history--possibly ever. Paradoxically, although Obama's success has been more dependent on personal charisma than any recent nominee's has, he's been leveraging that charisma to build a broader Democratic infrastructure less dependent on the presidential nominee.

This should be no surprise. Though Obama himself is a newcomer to Washington, the upper echelons of his Senate and campaign staff are populated almost exclusively by experienced Democratic Party operatives. Continuity with the established party infrastructure is a defining characteristic of the Obama campaign. When Hillary Clinton conceded the nomination, Obama's first major staff change was not the incorporation of a former Clinton operative meant to heal the divisions of the primary, nor the elevation of a national-security graybeard meant to reassure general-election voters of Obama's commander-in-chief credentials. Rather, it was to install Paul Tewes, the skilled organizer who served as the architect of Obama's crucial victory in Iowa, at the DNC to head up the committee's election-year efforts. A few weeks later, it was announced that the DNC would cease accepting contributions from lobbyists or political action committees.

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http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=its_his_party_08

Rock the fuck on Obama, and go on with your bad party-building self.

:kick:

on edit: K&R this great article!

What about Howard Dean? (yeah, he didn't win the nomination, but he was still a primary candidate.)

that come to reality (50-state strategy), but maybe they're talking about a candidate who has made it this far with that vision.

in the choices that were made that ran the party into the ground nationally as infrastructures in so many states were left to collapse. Every 2004 primary candidate saw how ineffective the party was at state levels and that's why most supported Dean vigorously on the 50 state strategy - especially Kerry.

The nominee taps INTO the party infrastructure that exists. Obama has a party infrastructure worth tapping into. It's not as strong as needed in every state, but definitely stronger in MOST states. I think it will take at least another election cycle before all the damage done by previous chairs is repaired.

He wants to be the Democratic equivalent to you-know-who.

Obama carries the torch with a great finesse today.

to be done and how badly the DNC under previous chairs had COLLAPSED THE PARTY and its infrstructures in too many states becauzse of their DC centric focus on what mattered to them and the Clintons - with NO REGARD for the health of the party state by state.

Obama is part of a national effort that FIRST had to take on the Clinton machine and Obama was able to win the primary with the help of those who made the determination to wrest the party from the grip of the Clintons in early 2005.

I want to love this article, but, it is hard to do so without recognizing all those who truly risked their necks to take on the GOP and the Clinton machine long before Obama started running for president.

given what the history now is, who would not have gotten as far as Obama. His appeal has impressed a lot of people; I've never seen such crowds.

than his candidacy.