Obama's Field Team Targets Blue Dogs' Districts Over Health Care

By GottaLaff

Kill them Blue Dawgs with kindness, community organizers:

As members of Congress head home for an August recess, Barack Obama's former campaign arm, Organizing for America (OFA), is gearing up to target Blue Dog districts with old-fashioned, on-the-ground operations.

This is what we've been waiting to hear. Paddy and I were just talking about OFA, and I thought I'd remembered they were out there, but this is the Big One we wanted to see.

[T]heir strategy has changed dramatically during the last couple of weeks, becoming more pointed: they are organizing canvassing drives and phone banks that specifically target the districts of the Blue Dog Democrats who have been reluctant to support Obama's health care reform. Volunteers are organizing and manning phone banks to call Blue Dogs in other districts or states, and some volunteers are even driving into Blue Dog districts to lend a hand. [...]

OFA volunteers are not calling to complain about the Blue Dogs, though. They're asking constituents to pick up the phone and call the Blue Dogs that represent them and tell them they support Obama's health care reform initiative. They're targeting constituents of Blue Dogs who have supported Obama in the past or indicated that they support health care reform, and they are asking them to mobilize.

Shasta McManus of Tucson, Arizona has been canvassing and phone banking for OFA in Rep. Gabriel Giffords's (D-AZ) district and plans to continue throughout the Congressional recess. McManus says the focus of OFA efforts in Giffords' district is entirely positive, "Gabby is awesome, we love her. But the other side is not going to stop, so we can't either. This is about gathering support, not opposition." [...]

[M]ost Blue Dogs seemed to prefer not having a bill. They want the voters in their districts to see that the process is deliberative, not rushed. Meanwhile, OFA volunteers across the country say it is their job to make sure every Democratic member of Congress has the support they need at home to say yes to health care reform.

So how's it going?

The GOPs' Free Our Health Care Now petition is running almost neck-and-neck with OFA's Health Care Pledge. Both have reportedly topped 1 million signatories.

OFA is not just relying on volunteers. They have staffers in all 50 states, focusing heavily on states like Arizona, Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina that performed surprisingly well in 2008. Efforts in some states, like North Carolina, are reaching a fever pitch as groups on both sides ramp up operations in ways that resemble the battleground state election campaigns from eight months ago.

OFA is even picking up new volunteers who did not get involved during the election but are passionate about health care reform. [...]

On-the-ground organizing may also have more far-reaching effects than just strengthening the President's position on health care. Every person OFA reaches on the phone today is a potential supporter in 2010 and 2012. Every door knocked or volunteer recruited today is a potential recruit in 2010 or 2012. Old-fashioned machine politics may be over, but in a time when the election cycle never sleeps, yearlong organizing in the election off-season is looking like the political mechanics of the future.

If only we could be spared the ads. Enough with the ads.

H/t: Ellen