October 14th, 2008
Good article here on Obama’s amazingly organized “ground game” - the hierarchy of precinct workers and volunteers that are the lifeblood of a political campaign. Many observers have remarked on how unusually well-organized Obama’s campaign is, and on how many workers and volunteers they have out in the field - even in “battleground” states, they are swamping the McCain organization with many times as many workers in the same areas.
Obama’s campaign, like all, has a top-down structure of smaller and smaller teams extending down to the local-neighborhood level, but his goes far beyond ordinary name-taking. They have specific coordinators for canvassing, phone-calling, recruiting volunteers, collecting data, and even religious outreach - for every block of every neighborhood of every targeted state. Each is overseen by a team leader, who was selected by having proven themselves on a set of specific organizing tasks the higher-level workers assigned to them - those who passed the test had shown they could get people to turn out, and were then sent on for further training at “boot camps”, where they were given further organizing skills and insights into the campaign. Obama’s field workers are apparently given more initiative and information than in most campaigns, and they are focused at the local level as much as possible.
All of this comes straight out of classic organizing work in community groups, unions, and political movements. Most campaigns just run a “ask for volunteers and shout orders at them” organization - Obama has built a movement (one that, I suspect, will be invited to participate in other projects after the election; his campaign has also been noted for its development of an ongoing, permanent voter data base, which the Kerry campaign failed to do). Suddenly his background looks more relevant than ever - and it’s paying off with a ground organization that is killing McCain. And as that organization reaches out, others see it and want to join in. (There are repeated stories of McCain offices in hot-spot areas being totally empty even on weekdays, and closed on weekends. One couple in the story above were Bush volunteers in 2004, and were so demoralized by the lousy McCain organization, and energized by Obama, that they became district coordinators in the Obama organization this time around.)
Organizing works! And during this campaign, that standard, tired old lefty political tactic is taking back our country for us.
UPDATE: [tgirsch] Fixed broken link
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October 14th, 2008
No one really cares what goes on at National Review, still less its online daycare center, NRO, but it’s interesting to see how they handle their various internal schisms.
(more…)
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October 14th, 2008
Good:
What do you think about Sarah Palin?
[laughs uncontrollably] I used to think that Michael Palin was the funniest Palin on Earth. What fascinates me, though, is how - people watching her on television – can they not see that she’s basically learned certain speeches? And she does them very well, she’s got a very good memory. But it’s like a nice-looking parrot – because the parrot speaks beautifully, and kind of says “Aw, shucks” every now and again – but doesn’t really have any understanding of the meaning of the words that it is producing, even though it’s producing them very accurately.
And she’s been in these training sessions with Cheney’s pals, and she’s learned these speeches, and the extraordinary thing is that so many people are taken in by it. And the truth is that Sarah Palin is no way good enough.
And if you lined up, from Europe, left-wingers, centrists, right-wingers, you wouldn’t find 10%, you really wouldn’t find 5%, who think she’s good enough to run the United States. And she’s running as the partner of a 72-year-old cancer survivor!
I mean, Monty Python could have written this! [laughs uncontrollably]
And I’m sorry, Michael Palin, to say you’re not the funniest Palin anymore, but you’re not.
Better: It was John Cleese.
Best: She’s soon to be an ex-parrot (politically speaking, that is).
H/T: Andrew Sullivan.
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October 14th, 2008
David Kurtz, of Talking Points Memo, catches this opening prayer at a McCain rally:
I would also add, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November. Because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it’s Hindu [sic], Buddha [sic], Allah - that [McCain’s] opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord I pray that you would guard your reputation, because they’re gonna think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. And so I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.
If it weren’t so offensive it would be funny. His ignorance is palpable (he apparently thinks “Hindu” is the name of a god, and that Buddhists pray to a god), the familiar xenophobic bigotry is well in evidence, and it reeks of childishness: he thinks his god cares who wins an election, and that elections are some sort of popularity contest between gods, a struggle to see who is “bigger”. Apparently gods have to intervene in elections (just as in football games and American Idol competitions) to “guard their reputations”, because it would be so embarrassing if their chosen candidate didn’t win. (Or, in this case, if the, supposedly, chosen Christian candidate of many non-Christians were to win, it would somehow be a victory for the non-Christian gods of those non-Christian supporters of that Christian candidate, and a loss for the god of the other Christian candidate, who is also the god of the winning candidate, but is humiliated by the victory of the one Christian rather than the other. The mind boggles at what this all means for Joe Lieberman.) He also thinks he’s in a position to give personal advice to his own god, which may not be a high-water mark for Christian chutzpah, but at least hints at what’s in store if we allow these yahoos to grab any further political power here on earth.
Of course it would be futile to expect any kind of consistency or rational thought to attach to this nonsense: If the Christian god’s reputation really is called into question by the outcome of this election, then when McCain and his fundy sheepfold get their asses handed to them in November one would, presumably, be entitled to regard that god in an appropriately lesser light, right? I mean, if McCain’s victory really does prove the greatness of McCain’s and Obama’s god, then Obama’s victory must really prove his impotence. But you’ll see no admission of that sort, you can be sure.
What we will see is more and more religion-as-competitive-sport among the beleaguered, angry, and resentful religious right, and more and more pandering to their fears and hostilities as the GOP continues to lose the middle. And as the non-Christian population increases in size and visibility, and as right-wing Christians lose the fight on their social-issue hatreds, one by one (miscegenation? lost, decades ago; mandatory school prayer? lost, decades ago; atheists-as-boogeymen? in full retreat; contraception? lost, decades ago and continuing; gay rights? lost, step by step over decades; gay marriage? in retreat; abortion? stalemate; stem cell research? stalling action, about to lose big time; gay adoption? losing; gays in military? partial retreat, about to lose it all; “Christian nation”? now a hallmark of bigotry), they gin up smaller and smaller issues to demagogue about (”Obama attended a madrassa”) and cling to sillier and sillier tribal symbols (God’s reputation in an election; “purity rings”).
When can we finally say religion has simply jumped the shark? Is it time yet? I think it’s getting close to time.
UPDATE: Jesus’ General nails it.
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