Heh. So much for our accurate political prognostication. The problem isn’t so much the cats, it’s the herders:

Herding Cats – Barack Obama 2.0 (January 14, 2009)

Obama on the rope line after his speech in Columbia, Missouri on October 30, 2008

(immediately below the outstretched arm holding a digital camera in the center of the image).

Retooling Obama’s campaign machine for the long haul

…As Barack Obama builds his administration and prepares to take office next week, his political team is quietly planning for a nationwide hiring binge that would marshal an army of full-time organizers to press the new president’s agenda and lay the foundation for his reelection.

The organization, known internally as “Barack Obama 2.0,” is being designed to sustain a grass-roots network of millions that was mobilized last year to elect Obama and now is widely considered the country’s most potent political machine…

Boy, did I get that one wrong. I wasn’t alone.

You can’t win any battles if you don’t bring your army:

Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?

By Sam Graham-Felsen

Friday, December 17, 2010

In the wake of President Obama’s deal to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, pundits have focused on how Obama has alienated the left. But the issue isn’t the left – it’s the list.

Obama entered the White House with more than a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain. He brought with him a vast network of supporters, instantly reachable through an unprecedented e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independents and even Republicans – and they were ready to be mobilized…..

….Obama has made it clear that, for the most part, his administration isn’t seriously interested in deploying this massive grass-roots list….

Because we’re all barbarians and the inside the beltway cocktail weenie circuit is afraid of us? They needn’t worry.

And the lunatic right wingnut fringe (now, the republican mainstream):

Dec 15, 2010

They’ll Just Get Madder

by paradox

….I vividly remember 2004 and the crushing loss to that Sarah Palin clone, George Bush, how liberals and progressives had every reason to pack it and quit but manifestly, resolutely did not with an adamancy that still surprises me. Even with this abominable deal in 2010, even if Obama should lose 2012, passionate liberal and progressive junkies will dive into politics to loudly promote the liberal agenda, it’s what patriots and junkies do.

Then the Right and Republicans will loathe us even more and get more berserk against liberals, for as Digby so wisely knows, Teabaggers and Republicans are authoritarians to the bone, they do not seek to accommodate liberals in any sense, they seek to destroy and totally silence. When we won’t shut up and keeping scoring small wins it enrages them even more than liberal policy.

Win or lose, they just keep getting madder. Something to keep firmly in mind in the future as we reach for whatever liberal goals are available to us.

[emphasis added]

Goals? What goals?

Just imagine all of the upscale holiday gag t-shirt gifts which will be opened and proudly worn by millionaires and billionaires for a few hours at the end of this next week: “69,456,897 chumps voted for ‘change’ and all I got was the renewal of my Paris Hilton tax break, no more inheritance taxes, and another successful assault on Social Security…”

Democrats bust buns knocking doors and phone banking every presidential election year, only to leave the thus-hard-won list of contacts out on the front lawn in the rain–till the next presidential election. By then, it’s in faded tatters.  Will anybody in the audience who has never bitched about this failing please raise his hand? …. Right. Just as I thought.

But this time, it’s different. Organizing for America (OFA), which has all the Obama voter data, is now an official arm of the DNC. And the plan is to keep building on that list. Missouri has five staffers. In fact, forty-three states, including Alaska, if you can believe it, have OFA staff.

Their job is to:

• Further Obama’s agenda. Right now that means helping getting health care reform passed, of course.
• Grow the organization.

Saturday, for example, OFA volunteer, Jo Ann, will take as many people as she can get to canvass at the Kirkwood Farmer’s Market from 9:30 to 2:30 (two shifts–9:30 to noon; noon to 2:30). Volunteers will be looking for voters to commit themselves to action. The action might be a promise to call or e-mail their legislators about health care reform whenever the word goes out from OFA, or it might be to call or visit voters who identified themselves as Democrats last fall and see if they’re willing to remain active.

If you live in the St. Louis area and are willing to help, contact Kyle Juvers, the Regional Field Director for South, Mid, and West St. Louis County, as well as for Jefferson County and, believe it or not, Southeast Missouri. (Kyle worked the Cape Girardeau area for Obama’s campaign last year, so he’s  coordinating what he can there from a distance.) His contact info is:

kyle.juvers@obamaalumni.com

314-578-9678

If you don’t live in St. Louis, you can find information about events in your area by logging onto:

http://www.barackobama.com

http://www.healthcare.barackobama.com

http://www.facebook.com/OFAMO.

If you have a question–like, for example, which OFA person oversees your area–e-mail OFAMISSOURI@DNC.org.

OFA aims to set up neighborhood teams over the next three years, and the way to build those teams is by personal contacts. Two weeks ago this coming Sunday, Democrats held a 2,000 person rally at the IBEW union parking lot to rev up the troops about health care reform. That’s all well and good, but nothing is as powerful as personal contact. Movie premieres may help drum up interest in a film, but nothing is more likely to convince you to see it than having an acquaintance praise it and urge you to go.

Just remember that if you don’t volunteer some time to this effort, it’s like you’re leaving last fall’s work lying on the front lawn in the rain.

P.S. South St. Louis County residents can get more details about being active by attending Kyle Juvers’ meeting Saturday from 10:30-11:30 at the Weber Road branch of the St. Louis County Library (4444 Weber Road, 63123). I attended a similar meeting Thursday night. Kyle promised we would be out by 7:30 and we were.