Friday, April 24, 2009

Organizing for America Office Coming To Collin Co.??

The Dallas Morning News TrailBlazersBlog:
Some news from suburbia this week... Word on the street is that President Obama's new grassroots issues campaign -- Organizing for America -- is kicking the tires on putting an office in conservative Collin County.

The chatter coincides with activity elsewhere. Earlier this month, the group [announced Luke Hayes as the Texas State Director for Organizing for America.] Now, Hayes is embarking on a Texas-wide "listening tour" to chat with and recruit volunteers.

When asked about the possibility of a Collin office, Natalie Wyeth, a Democratic spokeswoman in Washington, said in an email that nothing has been decided.

"We've asked local supporters and volunteers for suggestions on where it would be useful and convenient to have an OFA office in their area. Right now, Luke is working out of the Democratic Party headquarters in Austin. Anything else folks are saying about office space is speculative," she wrote.

Establishing an official campaign office in Collin County, of course, would be a bold move for Obama. Republicans have dominated the affluent suburban area for decades.

Still, experts say that the last few elections have revealed subtle Democratic shifts. Stay tuned.
While running to become the President of the United States, Barack Obama's campaign recruited millions of campaign supporters and contributors through online social networks. Over two million joined myBarackObama.com, a website fusing social networking with volunteer political organizing, while more than 5 million supported Obama's profile across other social websites like MySpace and Facebook. More than a million people asked for campaign text messages on their cell phones and yet more kept up with campaign information on Twitter. Most importantly, over 13 million voters signed up for regular e-mail fundraising pitches and other communications.

On January 15th Barack Obama announced the formation of a new group known as "Organizing for America" to continue the grassroots advocacy organization that supported his run for the presidency.

The key idea behind "Organizing for America" — is that the 20th century model of communicating with and motivating supporters has given way to a 21st century Internet media model of communication channels built around YouTube, Social Networking, Twittering, etc. — as was evident during his campaign and as is already evident in the White House’s media strategy. (see White House YouTube video channel bar in the right sidebar of this blog)

Organizing for America is now operating under the umbrella of the Democratic National Committee. The organization is looking at ways to leverage thousands of trained field organizers and tens of thousands of neighborhood coordinators to provide valuable grassroots support for Democratic candidates committed, or thinking about, running for office in the 2010 mid-term and 2012 election cycles. And not just national and state office candidates, but also local county and city office candidates - even in Republican strongholds like Collin County.

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