Month: February 2008

High School Psychodrama

by digby

Watching the returns last night I was once again struck by the rank lack of professionalism and complete abdication of journalistic ethics on MSNBC. I noted in my early post last night that if you wanted to see what the early exit polls were saying all you had to do was watch that channel. It was clear that the numbers were very bad for Clinton and excellent for Obama. They could barely contain themselves with broad hints and winks and nods that Clinton was toast. The sheer joy on their faces was a sight to behold.

Gene Robinson showed up before the returns were in claiming that the night was a repudiation of Bill Clinton. Prior to the polls closing Mike Barnicle said that Massachusetts was a clear sign that Clinton had lost her edge. Olbermann, Matthews, O’Donnell, all of them, looked feverish and excited at the beginning of the coverage only to end up dull and uninspired. Although their preferred candidate in the end did very well last night, it wasn’t the total rout they had been expecting ans so they were unhappily left spinning excuses and robotically reciting vote counts by the end of the night.

I think I understand what’s happened. They have rallied around Matthews, their colleague and friend, who they feel was unfairly forced to apologize publicly after New Hampshire by the Clinton campaign. They said as much outright. And in their desire to stand by their pal, they have become obsessively anti-Clinton and pro-Obama, nearly to the point of parody. Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly puts it this way:

If I were Barack Obama I would tell my flaks in the news media to shut up in the final days before elections. The chattering crowd’s frenzy for this man only raises expectations that he cannot meet.

As a result, what was otherwise not too shabby a night for Obama on Super Tuesday came across like a public relations defeat because so much more had been expected. Still, those who predicted a bigger night for Obama are invested in downplaying what actually happened, and will surely gin him up for the next contests.

Before Super Tuesday, gushing pundits predicted that the Kennedy family endorsements would, at a minimum, deliver Massachusetts. Didn’t happen. Feverish news reports of rising momentum for Obama led to hints that Obama could win New Jersey. Didn’t happen.

And, oh yeah, California’s returns were supposed to keep us up all night because the “force of nature” that is Obama had erased Clinton’s lead in the state. Oops, it turned out that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lead was so substantial that the networks could call the state for her just after midnight.

The California surprise promoted a bit of mea culpa from former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, who has actually been a voice of reason as so many of his colleagues have lost their minds for Obama.

“Once again,” Brokaw said on MSNBC as Clinton’s early California win was announced, “in all of our conventional and collective wisdom, we were wrong.”

I have to agree that if I were the Obama campaign I’d start to wonder if these guys are hurting more than helping. (Virtually everyone hates them anyway, particularly Matthews, so it’s hard to see that their cheerleading brings anyone in except villagers.)

And in case you think I’m wrong about this bias, here’s a nice long piece on Matthews in this week’s New York Observer:

Chris Matthews woke up on Super Tuesday at the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South. For breakfast, he tore into a bowl of Raisin Bran with skim milk, slurped down a cup of coffee (no cream, no sugar) and attacked a stack of newspapers. Moving from story to story, he scribbled notes directly onto the newsprint, circling important facts and figures and jotting down the occasional exclamation points. He particularly liked an article in the Daily News by Rich Cohen suggesting that Barack Obama should be president, and Hillary Clinton his chief of staff.

Mr. Matthews underlined the phrases “flag burning illegal,” and “her vote was politically motivated.” He tore out the article to review later that day.

[…]

In the meantime, he continued to ponder the big factors in the campaign. History. Courage. Change. Hope.

“I’ve been following politics since I was about 5,” said Mr. Matthews. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament. This is surprising.”

[…]

“I really think there’s a Salieri-Mozart thing going on here,” said Mr. Matthews. “Salieri was the court composer who did everything right. He was impressive. Along comes Mozart. And everybody couldn’t get the music out of their heads. Hillary is really good at doing what she is supposed to do. She’s impressive. He’s inspirational. That’s the difference. One’s the court composer. And one is the genius. There’s something he does. I don’t know what. Oprah said it. It’s not that he’s black. It’s that he’s brilliant.”

Mr. Matthews offered another musical anecdote about the Clintons. This one taken from closer to home. “Remember Buster Poindexter?” said Mr. Matthews. “His big song was ‘Hot, Hot, Hot.’ Not a great piece of music but it was all right. So Poindexter goes to a society party, east side or something. A very hoity-toity woman says, ‘Do you do private affairs?’ ‘Well, yeah,’ he says. ‘How much will that be?’ He says: $5,000. She calls at 7 o’clock the next morning. She’s says, ‘Oh, last night I forgot to tell you that there will be no mixing with the guests.’ He said, ‘Okay, in that case it’ll only be $3,000.’”

Mr. Matthews grinned.

“That’s sort of my view of the Clintons,” he said. “It’s better to have less than to have more.”

Now, whether you are a Clinton or Obama supporter you should find his comments disturbing. He does not present himself as an Obama supporter honestly on the air. And when he’s called on his biases and prejudices as he was after his blatant sexist jihad against Clinton for months leading up to New Hampshire, his friends circle the wagons and help him write a new script for his psychotic little drama on the air.

Chris Matthews personally deplored Bill Clinton when he was president, loathed Al Gore in 2000, hated John Kerry in 2004 and right now despises Hillary Clinton. And there are huge hints of what’s to come if Obama does get the nomination, particularly if McCain, the man who Matthews has already said “deserves to be president” becomes the Republican nominee. He has the narrative already primed:

One idea in the notebook was something a congressman had told Mr. Matthews years earlier. The congressman had said that every so often in life, the galloping horse of history comes by and you have to make a decision. “You have to jump on that horse or you miss your turn,” Mr. Matthews had said. “The country is facing that. Do I want to jump on the horse, or not? It’s too tricky. It’s too scary. It’s moving too fast. I’m not ready.”

The galloping campaign, in Mr. Matthews’ estimation, was that of Senator Barack Obama. He had the momentum, was in the saddle, was holding the reigns. But had Mr. Obama become the avant-garde candidate? If so, he was in trouble. The middle-class workers would pull back in suspicion. Who was this Ivy League guy on his, um, high horse? They wouldn’t get on board. The galloping horse of history might pass them by.

Matthews sees himself as the voice of the working man, so this is his pivot point. Just wait. If Senator Obama wins the nomination, Chris and his cohort are going to turn on a dime. The Republicans will immediately begin to mau-mau them for their obvious bias and they will bend over backwards to “prove” they aren’t in the tank for Obama.

These people are never going to be good for us, no matter how much short term satisfaction it gives us to see them being kind to one of our candidates. It will always be temporary. Never doubt it.

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Savvy Political Behavior

by digby

Here’s an interesting analysis from reader Joe:

While the networks focus on demographic explanations (white-black, man-woman), I think there is a case to made now that the regional draw of these two candidates is more deeply rooted in the recent political culture and history of each state. Obama’s post-partisan, one America appeal resonates best in the states that have been dominated by Republicans and republican lite candidates (Iowa, SC, GA, AL, DE, CN). Obama is really cutting across the red states. On the other hand, Hillary is doing best among the blue states or trending blue states from the most recent elections (NH, NV, NY, NJ, MA). There are some slippery states for such a formula (TN, OK), but it might knock back the old political talk about identity politics and redirect the discourse to savvy political behavior and choices by the voters.

The post-partisan, bi-partisan argument favors the party out of power, so it is not really surprising that Obama resonates more with those states who see reconciliation as the path to local power. Clinton though seems more acceptable to partisans and state parties who control their local agendas.

Of course it’s complicated in these primaries by the fact that some of these states are quite close and delegates are awarded proportionately, but the regional analysis is interesting as it relates to the electoral college and the way to win in November.Clearly, there are some states that both candidates won tonight that will not be in the Democratic column in the fall. But many are, and in this may lie clues as to how to approach them.

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Dizzy Foxes

by digby

If you want to have some fun, watch FoxNews tonight. They are so confused they can barely talk. Haley Barbour just came on and said that he thought it wasn’t useful for the party to fight all the way to the end of the primaries. Hume asked him who should drop out and he sputtered and stuttered and finally indicated that McCain was probably the one who should win but, well, if Romney wins California then maybe… and Huckabee has been very strong … and then he finally just sort of drifted off. He clearly thinks McCain is the strongest candidate, which is probably true, but he can’t really say it because the base is holding its breath until it turns blue.

Bill Kristol looks suicidal. (Huckabee?) What a mess.

*And Romney has to be pleased tonight. He won all three of his home states.

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Voters Like These Candidates

by dday

This nugget from the CNN exit polls is an important point:

There’s no doubt Democrats are torn between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But the early exit polls show they are not bitterly divided: 72 percent of Democrats said they would be satisfied if Clinton won the party’s nomination, while 71 percent say the same about Obama.

That’s what I see when I talk to actual Democrats, particularly those who don’t spend all their time on the Internet. Not only do Democrats like both candidates, not only do they think they are going to get to vote FOR someone instead of AGAINST the Republican this year, but the primary is improving that view. I don’t think either of these two are saviors, which is why I think a movement that will hold them accountable is the most important thing (as disclosure, it is for this reason I voted for Obama today). As frightened as Democrats are about a brokered convention and hurt feelings, it should be known that these two candidates are overwhelmingly acceptable to Democrats, and a longer primary contest (which would wind up with a scant 7 or 8-month general election instead of 9), if it’s played fair – and I think there’s an overwhelming desire for it on both sides to keep it fair, considering how negative campaigning has generally turned out in this race – will actually put Democratic ideas in front of the electorate in very positive ways.

This is a good example of what I mean:

As voters in 24 states go to the polls today, many express a deep pessimism about America’s future. A Gallup poll last month found 73% of adults were dissatisfied with the state of the nation. A recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll reported that 44% of Americans expected no real changes in Washington, no matter who’s elected.

In more than two dozen interviews on the campus here — in a state with a hotly contested Democratic caucus — students largely shared that gloomy outlook.

But in a paradox that intrigues analysts — and could well shape the election — they still feel inspired to vote.

“They do think America’s going to hell in a handbasket,” said Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University in Washington. “But they have some feeling of hope, some feeling of idealism.”

Sophomore Dillon Fisher-Ives put it this way: “As hopeless as voting might seem, not voting is worse.”

We know the country is broken and that the political system is broken. Instead of turning away, we’re going to work to change it.

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Exit Polls

by digby

Here are a few of the details release about the exit polls today. The early numbers are floating around, but anybody who was around in 2004 knows that it’s a mistake to get too excited or too depressed by them. I’ll never forget the hangdog looks on the faces of Fred Barnes and Brit Hume until about 7pm on election night… (If you are wondering what they are, check out MSNBC.)

Anyway, here’s some fresh meat:

Highlights from preliminary results of exit polling in the Super Tuesday primary states for The Associated Press and television networks:

RACE AND GENDER

In the Democratic races, Barack Obama led among black voters and Hillary Rodham Clinton led among Hispanic voters. Obama led among white men, while Clinton led among white women. Overall, Obama led among men and Clinton led among women, although her advantage among women appeared smaller than was seen in early primary states. In the Republican races, John McCain led among men. He had only a small lead over Romney among women.

CONSERVATIVES AND MODERATES

John McCain led among Republicans who call themselves moderates, while Romney led among Republicans who call themselves conservatives. McCain had a small lead among Republicans and a large advantage among independents voting in the Republican primaries.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

About one in 10 voters in each party said they decided whom to vote for on Tuesday. Slightly more said they decided in the last three days. About half of Democratic primary voters and a third of Republicans said they made up their minds more than a month ago.

ECONOMIC WORRIES

Voters in both parties most frequently picked the economy as the most important issue facing the country. Given three choices, half of Democratic primary voters picked the economy, three in 10 said the war in Iraq and the remaining two in 10 said health care. Republican primary voters had four choices for that question and four in 10 picked the economy; two in 10 picked immigration and the war in Iraq and somewhat fewer said terrorism.

Republicans had a far rosier view of the condition of the national economy, although few called it excellent; more four in 10 said it was good. Among Democratic primary voters, fewer than one in 10 called the economy excellent or good; half called it not so good and four in 10 labeled it poor.

Democratic primary voters also were asked about their family’s financial situation and a little more than half said they were holding steady. Among the rest, somewhat more said they were falling behind than getting ahead.

CANDIDATE QUALITIES

In the Democratic races, nearly half of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s voters said it was most important to them that their candidate has the right experience, while three in four of Barack Obama’s supporters said their top quality was that the candidate “can bring about needed change.” On the Republican side, half of Mitt Romney’s voters and seven in 10 of Mike Huckabee’s prized a candidate who “shares my values.” John McCain voters split among several qualities _ a third said experience was most important while a quarter each said it was that he shares their values or “says what he believes.”

GETTING OUT TO VOTE

As has been the case in earlier contests this season, turnout appeared to be considerably higher in Democratic than in Republican primaries.

SATISFIED WITH THEIR CHOICES?

Just half of Democrats who voted for Clinton said they would be satisfied if Obama won, while just half of Obama voters said they would be satisfied if Clinton won.

DEMOGRAPHICS:

The Democratic electorate was a bit younger than Republican primary-goers. More than one in 10 Democratic voters were under age 30 and one in five were over age 65. Among GOP primary voters fewer than one in 10 were under 30 and a quarter were over 65.

As usual, men outnumbered women in Republican primaries while the reverse was true on the Democratic side.

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Say Bye-Bye

by digby

The conservative legacy will be with us for a long, long time.

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It’s Not Personal, Mac. It’s Strictly Business

by digby

Following up on dday’s post below, can I also say how much fun it is to watch the conservatives have a hissy fit over their own, even if it’s at least a little bit kabuki? It’s not just McCain, you know. This public “dissatisfaction” between the Republican establishment and the conservative movement has been evident for a while. Remember this?

The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”

(I have a sneaking suspicion that they are about to find out who’s boss if this gets out of hand.)

Meanwhile, Rush is treating Bob Dole like he’s a senile old fool (or a woman who wants an abortion.) He doesn’t know what he’s doing, you see. He’s being manipulated.

In fact, it’s interesting that Dole come into this. It was in 1996 that the conservative movement showed it could play the long game. They knew they were going to lose. Clinton, by that time, was popular again and had trumped Newties government shutdown gambit. They knew they were going to lose and set themselves up for 2000.

Here’s what they did, per Adele Stan who covered that race:

Pat Buchanan in 1996 … won control of the party platform by threatening to take his merry band of delegates out of the G.O.P. (That platform, written by Phyllis Schlafly, was an albatross hung around the neck of the nominee, Bob Dole — a signal to the 2000 nominee to play ball with the right.)

At the press conference that followed Huckabee’s speech, I asked Huckabee if his remarks indicated a willingness to march his delegates out of the G.O.P. “You know, there may come a time, if the Republican Party decides that it’s going to change its platform where it no longer respects human life and no longer really holds to the concept of traditional marriage, you know, [that] I might not find myself at home in the G.O.P., but I don’t personally feel that my goal in life is to lead a revolution out of the Republican Party,” he replied. “My goal is to help the Republican Party to stay true to what’s made it a strong, stable and victorious party. We win elections when we stick to our stuff. We lose elections when we slip off and get squishy.” So, it’s not his goal to lead a revolution. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, right? And it’s not Dobson’s intention to launch a third party, but if an “appropriate” candidate just happened to turn up on a “minor party” ticket, Dobson just might have to vote for him, capice? Now, let’s have a little talk about that platform

They’ll make ’em an offer they can’t refuse….

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Movement v. McCain?

by dday

I’ve collected a bunch of articles over the past few days about John McCain and whether he will be able to reconcile the conservative coalition and unite the party. Generally, I think that in the end, hard-core Republicans will go to the polls to vote against Obama or Clinton. However, there is a concern that they won’t be happy about it, won’t work to get occasional voters out, and won’t do what’s necessary to get McCain elected.

I mean, despite the media’s fluffing of McCain, the conservative media actively hates him (Bill Bennett and his disclosure problem excepted). There are so many news items that can be dug up to “prove” McCain’s liberalism, in particular his flirtation with the Democrats after losing to Bush in 2000. Never mind McCain’s actually flip-flopped back to the conservative position on practically all of his “maverick” legislation, and even on his signature issue of campaign finance reform, McCain has made liberal use of soft money, in addition to trying to get out of the Presidential public financing system. Here’s Joe Conason.

Created after his failed presidential run in 2000, the Reform Institute is a hybrid between a domestic issues think tank and a tasty sugar teat for campaign staffers. Among its senior fellows is former Mexican Cabinet member Juan Hernandez, who also heads the McCain campaign’s outreach to Hispanic voters. Other Reform Institute employees have included lobbyist and political consultant Rick Davis, long a member of the McCain inner circle and now his campaign manager.

The sweetest aspect of the Reform Institute — aside from its commitment to research on immigration reform, campaign finance and other liberal concerns that the senator no longer finds so relevant — is that its own financing is not subject to the regulations and disclosures of federal election law. In practice, that has meant not only that the McCain crowd could sop up subsidies from foundations run by liberal Democrats but that corporate donors with issues before the Commerce Committee could chip in a few bucks, too. Or a few thousand bucks, or even 50,000 bucks or more, like the executives of Cablevision (under the name CSC Holdings) and Echostar, communications firms with substantial issues at stake before McCain’s committee.

Then there was that contribution from American International Group, whose executives had been quite concerned in 2000 about McCain’s vow to stop AIG from profiting illicitly on insurance overcharges ripped off from the Boston “Big Dig” project. Sen. John Kerry got most of the blame for the demise of McCain’s reform bill, which would have banned insurance giants like AIG from overcharging federal projects and reaping windfalls from investing that money. But it was actually McCain who killed his own bill — and nobody seems to have checked back to discover that AIG later donated more than $50,000 to the Reform Institute. How much more? That might be a relevant question now, notably because Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the McCain backer who ran AIG in those days, has since been forced to relinquish the company under threat of criminal prosecution.

But this has proven cold comfort for the haters from the right on John McCain. James Dobson is now on record saying that he’ll never support the Arizona Senator, and crackpot Richard Viguerie is asking for a NEW candidate to come in, Fred Thompson 2.0 as Josh Marshall calls in, to take McCain down.

I think the media-hungry conservatives want to hold on to their own power, and a McCain win in November is almost more debilitating to them than a McCain loss. They don’t want to spread the “myth” that Republicans can win without their support; it would break the stranglehold they think they have on the party. Only they don’t; McCain’s Senate colleagues, who don’t even like him all that much, are reassessing him, and certainly they’d fall in line behind him when he becomes the nominee. Establishment organs like the Wall Street Journal are twisting themselves in knots to argue for a McCain candidacy, arguing that he is needed because a lot of Supreme Court justices are old and will need to be replaced… um, isn’t John 72 going on 100? Is that the argument you really want to make?

Conservative James Joyner took a look at this the other day, and came to some interesting conclusions:

Perhaps “conservatives” are now a minority, even among Republican primary voters? If so, given that there are virtually no conservatives remaining in the Democratic Party these days and that voters who aren’t aligned with either party are almost by definition non-ideological, that would mean that conservatives are a small minority, indeed, among the American electorate.

Alternatively, perhaps the definition of “conservative” has become so narrow and esoteric that it’s become virtually meaningless? […]

The Conservative Movement has morphed from a handful of intellectual true believers trying to shape the debate into something approaching a civil religion with loyalty tests and a clericy that has the power to excommunicate.

John McCain was part of the 1980 wave that rolled into Congress on Ronald Reagan’s coattails. Indeed, McCain was among those Reagan was honored to stand with at 1974’s CPAC convention. But someone with an 82 percent lifetime ACU rating is considered a traitor to the cause. Much better, apparently, to flip 180 degrees on election eve and spout the right Party Line talking points.

As I wrote last year from CPAC, when throngs of so-called conservatives lined up for Ann Coulter’s autograph moments after she referred to John Edwards as a “faggot,” “Somehow, I can’t imagine Ronald Reagan being pleased.” Yet, the modern Conservative Moment seems to be dominated by the shrill nonsense of Coulter and Jonah Goldberg[*] and Michael Savage and Neil Boortz. In short, the Conservative Movement is no longer particularly “conservative” at all.

Yep. And they have a powerful need not to be marginalized. If so, the entire house of cards that is the wingnut welfare system comes crashing down. I have to conclude that the movement will actively work to stop John McCain in November, just as the establishment of the Democratic party worked to stop George McGovern in 1972, and once again, the derailment will come from the ideological right. Their ideas discredited, their movement endangered, they must resort to sabotage to save themselves.

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All hail Bipartisanship

by digby

So, I just got a call from Rick Perlstein who is voting at the same precinct as Barack Obama in Chicago, where there is a ton of press, as you might imagine. He noticed signs like this all over the place and wondered what they meant:

It turns out that it’s a campaign for health care and social security reform sponsored by AARP, National Business Roundtable, SEIU and National Federation of Independent Business. The point of it, as you can guess from the logo, is to encourage bipartisanship in the congress.

Here’s an example of the kind of bold action they’re calling for:

In America today, it is a struggle for millions of people to afford the health care they need. The threat of rising health insurance premiums and the prospect of losing coverage altogether has become a constant concern for far too many American families.

We believe that:

* All Americans should have access to affordable health care, including prescription drugs, and these costs should not burden future generations.
* Wellness and prevention efforts, including changes in personal behavior such as diet and exercise, should be top national priorities.
* Americans should have choices when it comes to long-term care – allowing them to maintain their independence at home or in their communities with expanded and affordable financing options.

We need to improve the health care system by making it more affordable, boosting quality and eliminating waste. But instead of bringing solutions to this problem, politicians in Washington have been content to stall, to argue, to criticize and to blame each other. While they play politics, we are left with huge health care bills, health care premiums and deductibles that are climbing through the roof, eroding benefits and little hope of reasonable, common-sense, balanced solutions.

Note there’s no call for the “U” word. Apparently, it’s enough that we all agree that health care should be affordable and people should be more healthy. We’ll start the compromising from there.

Also note one other thing. They have asked members of congress to sign a pledge supporting those principles. It’s a very inspiring list until you realize that they couldn’t even get more than a handful of Republicans to sign on to a non-universal, lukewarm water statement of support for affordable health care and wellness.

This reminds me a lot of an earlier bipartisan group that was formed the last time the Democrats were on the verge of gaining the presidency. They were very earnest and well-meaning too. And they (along with a little man from Texas) succeeded in making bipartisan fiscal conservatism the central issue of the campaign, which resulted in Democrats going out on a limb to reduce the deficit while the Republicans immediately started screeching hysterically about taxes and set about taking the congress two years later.

For some reason nobody ever starts these groups or calls for bipartisanship when the Republicans are on the verge of winning. It’s always assumed that they are representing the “heartland” and “real Americans” who want their agenda passed. Democrats coming into power are always being exhorted to reach across the aisle and compromise to bring the country to the middle. I wonder why that is?

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Conversion Stories

by digby

As we all wait for the returns today from what is undoubtedly the most exciting, nail biter of a Super Tuesday ever, I thought I’d offer up some articles I’ve come across about how the candidates do what they do.

If Barack Obama wins in California today, it may be because of this:

In a storefront on Q Street in Sacramento, Kim Mack told a crowd that spilled out onto the sidewalk how she came to back Barack Obama.

With a son serving in the Iraq war, which she opposed, Mack was looking for a like-minded presidential candidate. She was impressed by the Illinois senator’s books.

But the clincher came on March 17, when she met the Democratic contender face to face. She describes how he lit up the room with his wide smile, shook her hand and thanked her for volunteering.
Click here to find out more!

“He looked at me, and the look in his eyes was worth 1,000 words,” said Mack, now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear – she was so thrilled she doesn’t remember what it was.

Then Mack brought home the point of her story for the crowd of 100 or so eager volunteers, sipping coffee and watching a PowerPoint presentation in the Obama campaign office on a recent Saturday.

“Did that make more impact on you than if I had talked about his health care plan or his stance on the environment?” she asked.

On the verge of a hectic few weeks leading to Super Tuesday, the crucial Feb. 5 multistate primary including California’s, Mack wanted to drill home one of the campaign’s key strategies: telling potential voters personal stories of political conversion.

She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama – something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone.

“Work on that, refine that, say it in the mirror,” she said. “Get it down.”

She told the volunteers that potential voters would no doubt confront them with policy questions. Mack’s direction: Don’t go there. Refer them to Obama’s Web site, which includes enough material to sate any wonk.

The idea behind the personal narratives is to reclaim “values” politics from the Republican Party, said Marshall Ganz, a one-time labor organizer for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers who developed “Camp Obama” training sessions for volunteers.

When people tell their stories of how they made choices and what motivates them, they communicate their values, Ganz said in an interview.

“Values are not just concepts, they’re feelings,” Ganz said. “That’s what dropped out of Democratic politics sometime in the ’70s or ’80s.”

To convey these values, the Obama campaign claims to be taking grass-roots organizing to a new level, harnessing what they describe as a groundswell of enthusiasm.

In California, the campaign claims that 120,000 people have shown an interest in working for Obama. Seven thousand of those are actively involved, putting in five hours to 80 hours a week.

The campaign boasts 223 official organizing teams in all of the state’s 53 congressional districts, and 700 community groups. Sacramento’s was one of the first and is also one of the most active.

Statewide, 3,527 people trained as precinct captains oversee phone banking and canvassing door to door in precincts that generally include about 300 registered Democrats.

[…]

“Just follow Barack’s lead and be honest with them,” the Web site advises. “You don’t need to debate policy or discuss the day’s headlines. You have a very personal reason for investing your time and energy in this campaign – that is the most compelling story you can tell.”

Indeed, participants in the Saturday morning precinct-captain training were already adept at telling their Obama-conversion stories.

Libbie Coleman, a 61-year-old microbiology teacher at McClatchy High School, read Obama’s books last spring.

“I’ve been a voter for 40 years,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been needing to hear these things for 40 years.”

Faced with a politician who spoke to her heart, Coleman said, she had no choice but to become involved, for the first time, in a political campaign.

If Clinton wins, it may be because of this:

A little after 9:00 PM, in one nightly reporting meeting I witnessed, regional field director Ryan Donohue started with three questions for all his organizers: “Did you have a Caucus 101 meeting today?” “How many people were you expecting to show up?” “How many people did you actually have?” In the case of a discrepancy, organizers were asked to explain what happened. There was the feeling that it was better to have a small number of volunteers and to have predicted turn out correctly, than to have a big unexpected turnout. In other words, as an organizer, this campaign expected you to be in control.

The walls of Donahue’s team office were covered with overlapping charts and lists of staff, their precinct captains, and other measures of their progress. But no numbers were put on the wall without a discussion of how they were achieved–and the lessons to be learned from the experience. In these nightly reporting sessions, regional directors went beyond mere numbers to debrief every conversation the organizers held that day with potential campaign workers as well as detailed plans for future recruitment, voter ID, persuasion and organization building. Each reporting session included good-natured self-critique and group-critique of team members’ day-to-day efforts, both successful and unsuccessful. All meetings closed with a “role play” in which one organizer was called upon to lead a mock volunteer house meeting (the mainstay organizing tool of the campaign). The role plays too were followed by self- and group-critique.

After organizers had given their reports, they went to work inputing data from the day’s work into “The Donkey,” a new online volunteer management system. Regional directors then gathered in another room to report their teams’ results to the statewide field director, Marlon Marshall, followed by the same process of self- and group-critique and evaluation.

In one of these upper-level meetings I visited, word was handed down by Marshall of new internal polls showing Obama surging in Nevada. And rumor had it that all bets were off, even in Iowa. No more inevitability. And intelligence about the Obama campaign pointed to massive turnout on their part.

Things are getting tougher

Marshall explained to his bleary-eyed regional directors that the vote goals for all precincts therefore had to be revised. In other words, the goal post for all organizers had suddenly moved much father away. The regional field directors looked to be in various states of anxiety. But there was no sense of depression or despair. They were part of a well functioning organization. They knew the next step. They knew exactly what they had to do the next day, because they had just detailed their plan to their field director in the meeting.

Finally, getting close to 11:00 PM, Marshall would then report the progress of the past 24 hours in detail to state director Mook.

Through that repetition of work, accountability, reflection and change, an organization was being built to accomplish a goal: victory in the Nevada Caucus on January 19. That repetition was taking place within a grand strategy that, though changing along with the conditions of the race, was understood by all staff and even all volunteers.

Mook sees that kind of big-picture strategic understanding as essential for everyone from regional field organizers down to precinct captains: “If I train someone, and hold them accountable for delivering overall goals in a precinct, they’re going to work a lot harder than if I just say, ‘Go find 3 supporters and then come back to me.’ If I say, ‘You’re accountable for winning,” then they’re going to do whatever it takes. And also, as the definition of what it’s going to take to win changes over the course of the campaign, they’re going to be able to adapt to that.”

Even as the clock struck midnight, staff were still buzzing around the office in a mixture of calm efficiency and adrenalin rush as the news of the new tough reality spread among the staff.

Mook and Marshall are naturally good managers. And they work at being good managers. They see it as a major ingredient to winning–something that makes campaigns work.

“I’ve worked for Robby before and he sets a tone of being accountable–not just in terms of numbers, but also your work ethic and how your treat people, and how you run an organization. It comes out of asking a lot of people, but respecting people too,” caucus director Mara Lee told me.

“Here, people are asked to do what they can do, and a little bit more. The nice thing is that organizers know they can go to their regionals. Regionals know they can go to Robby, or myself or Marlon. So it’s not just a matter of reporting up–there’s actually a two way conversation. Sure, it’s hierarchical because it’s an organization. But everyone is helping each other to succeed.”

I asked Ryan Donohue if the level of detail expected in daily reporting seemed excessive. “At first yes,” he said. “But now I realize it might actually be a little under.”

I assume that both campaigns feature pieces of each of those approaches, but this shows an interesting contrast that I think may illustrate what their supporters are attracted to in their chosen candidates. Inspiration vs perspiration. Broad strokes vs wonky details. Pick your poison.

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