What happened to Barack Obama's once vaunted political machine? The outfit that put upwards of 8 million volunteers on the street in 2008 - known as Organizing for America - is a ghost of its former self. Its staff has shrunk from 6,000 to 300, and its donors are depressed: receipts are a fraction of what they were in 2008. Virtually no one in politics believes it will turn many contests this fall. "There's no chance that OFA is going to have the slightest impact on the midterms," says Charlie Cook, who tracks congressional races.
Neglect is to blame. After Obama was elected, his political aides ignored the army he had created until it eventually disappeared. No one was in charge; decisions were often deferred but rarely made. By the time they realized they needed more troops, says longtime consultant Joe Trippi, "their supporters had taken a vacation from politics."
Not really a "vacation from politics". Most still pay attention, in a spectator sport sort of way. I wonder why anyone is surprised, though, when "hope and change" turned out to be "bait and switch", what did they expect?
I suppose Obama will try to use the same methods for his re-election campaign, but it won't work. He'll still get enough votes to be competitive, but he's not going to get the backing of the DFH's.
Time to put the crazy mother fuckers in charge, and enjoy the show.
3 comments:
Republicans: Screw poor people, they need to work.
Rich Republicans: Lets screw poor people to get money.
Jaded Liberal: Lets let/actively try to get Republicans elected and screw poor people.
Who says this country can't be united.
Atrios frequently says that he hopes for really bad economic news, not because it'll screw people.. but because it appears to be the only way to get the politicians to actually address the issues.
I just take that line of thought to a more general political sense. Obama has been a pretty awful president and he's defined as "liberal" thus wrecking liberalism and the democratic party for a long time to come. The only way to fix that is to put Sarah Palin in charge of everything for a while.
It's not like the liberals can do anything about it anyway. We thought we were electing the hopey changy guy. While what he campaigned on wasn't as close to the liberal ideal as we liked, we thought it would be a good start. Turns out.. you simply cannot get effective liberal policy in the US regardless what you do, so might as well invite the circus to town for a while and enjoy the show.
And it's not just the poor who will get screwed. I hope you're not going to need Social Security or Medicare some day.
My father spent all the money he saved for retirement on medical bills for my mother.. because our medical insurance system sucks ass. Now he gets by on Social Security and Medicare, plus some help from his kids.
The guy heading up the liberal presidents commission on destroying Social Security said my father is living on the government "tit".
Ya... we're supposed to go vote for any of those fuckers ever again?
Ya.. okay. You go vote.
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Never again going to vote for any of them. Obama is hands down the worst president ever, eclipsing chimpy by a fairly wide margin. While Bush launched a bullshit war, and had prisoners tortured, which would normally land you in a war crimes trial, Obama has everything hidden so that it's never seen again. I consider that much worse a crime than the original crime.
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