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The “Mandate Incarnate”: President Obama’s Grassroots Advocacy Organization Gets Underway

Wed, March 18th, 2009 by Michael Cornfield | 0 comments

Remember the grassroots army that helped elect Barack Obama president? This week, the thirteen million people in the Obama campaign database received new marching orders: fan out in your neighborhoods and procure signatures for a petition on behalf of the president’s budget.

These activities are among the first stirrings of “Organizing for America,” a grassroots advocacy network without real precedent in American history. While many presidents have attempted to convert the concept of an electoral mandate into pressure on Congress, this is the first systematic presidential initiative to bring real people right into the act, again and again, on an array of legislation. “Organizing for America (OFA),” housed at the DNC for legal and image purposes, intends to spur millions of volunteers and contributors into action: contributing stories and dollars, spreading the word to their peers about important issues, and, ultimately, contacting key legislators about pending votes.

In a related initiative, the new president has issued directives to the executive branch to make more government documents and data available for public comment before official decisions are made. This will help the grassroots advocates exert lay oversight pressures on public officials. It will also reduce the informational advantage traditional lobbyists possess over citizens as they attempt to persuade legislators.

The war game for this operation took place in February. On the activism front, OFA generated 3,587 “Economic Recovery House Meetings” in 1,579 cities and 429 congressional districts. Those assembled watched a video in which Virginia Governor and Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine described the recovery plan and answered questions about it drawn from a pool submitted online. More than 30,000 stories of economic hardship were submitted to the campaign web site. The stories provided anecdotal grist for the White House and Democratic speechwriting mills. But they can also be consumed by anyone straight from the web.

At the same time, on the informational front, Obama announced in his weekly web video address on February 8 that “As soon as this [stimulus] law goes into effect, Recovery.gov goes live.” This site is supposed to house information about the recipients of the hundreds of billions of dollars to be distributed through the act. “We are counting on you,” reads a call to action, “to peruse that information and tell us what you find. Please share your stories, your ideas, and your comments.” The grassroots feedback will go to the new Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board headed by Vice-President Biden. Expect more speechwriting grist and public consumables.

We are passing a technological milestone in our national experiment in self-governance. In the last few years, tens of millions of Americans have learned to bank online, chat online, get transportation directions (and traveling music) online, and campaign online. In the next few months, many of them are going to learn to advocate online.

The American people are ready to do this. A Pew poll conducted in late November 2008 found that 62% of Obama voters (31% of adult Americans) expected “to ask others to support the policies of the new administration over the next year.” Nearly half of Obama’s voters, 46%, and a third of McCain’s voters expected to hear directly (i.e. not just through the mass media) from the presidential candidates and party leaders in 2009. Another survey reported that 35% of the nation’s Internet users (about ¾ of the adult population) have profile pages on a social network portal such as MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and 43% of those networkers “organize with others for an event, issue, or cause.”

Win or lose, (and he will probably do some of both), President Obama will set the example and hasten an evolution in the democratic process. The following activities are all going to become permanent features of public policymaking:

• The use of web video, email, blogs, social networking pages, and text messaging for incoming and outgoing grassroots communication.
• Organic targeting (i.e. targeting based on the activist histories of those to be tapped for the latest actions, and not just on purchased and government data).
• Small group meetings such as house parties, organized online, to rouse community spirit and campaign participation.
• Expanded timely public access to policy documents.

The rise in grassroots advocacy has been underway for close to a decade. It has fed on technological innovation and the civic consciousness of the millennial generation. Because of the unusual state of emergency in our economy, as well as the usual urgency of a new administration, and the talents and inclinations of the Obama political shop, the trend will accelerate this year.

And that means advocacy organizations which do not incorporate these four soon-to-be-standard activities into their daily operations will quickly find themselves throwing spears at drone planes. To be sure, money, mail, television, and a crackerjack team of lobbyists and other influence specialists will still count for a lot. But for the foreseeable future -until the economy is righted, at the earliest-authentic public support, as evidenced by the dynamic participation of citizens in advocating legislative preferences—will be the main source of legitimacy and power in public affairs. No other type of voice is trusted as much right now. And the voice of the people has always been the most powerful. As Lincoln said, “With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”

Authentic expressions of public sentiment have often been disorganized, unclear, and after the fact. It doesn’t have to be that way. We’re here to help.

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