Saintless

Barack Obama has announced that he’s taking the 50-State Strategy all the way, and there will be campaign offices in every state, including Utah. Monday morning I was able to confirm that it will likely be late July before we see them on the ground here, but that’s far earlier than I had even hoped for. So far, they’re not telling us much more than that, but I’m sure that when it gets closer, they’ll be looking for housing for staffers again. If you have the ability and willingness, please keep an eye out here for the announcement.

Here’s the email from David Plouffe about it:

Dear Misty,

I have some news that I wanted you to hear.

People like you have been the heart of Chairman Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy to rebuild our party and empower Democrats to compete everywhere. We’ve all seen the energy and enthusiasm at the grassroots level impact races up and down the ballot over the last three years.

I am proud to announce that our presidential campaign will be the first in a generation to deploy and maintain staff in every single state.

The network of volunteers and the infrastructure built up during the historic primary season — on behalf of all the Democratic campaigns — have given us an enormous and unprecedented opportunity in the general election.

Now it’s time to expand our network and push our organizing resources even further. No matter where you live, our success this November will depend on your involvement. Sign up to join our campaign now, and we’ll make sure you’re aware of all the latest news and opportunities to make a difference:

http://my.barackobama.com/getinvolved

Of course, some states will be more competitive than others, and we will scale our resources accordingly.

But your work building our party means that the list of competitive states will be longer than ever before — and it will include states like Virginia and Montana where your work has helped a Democratic resurgence at the state level.

And in every single state, no matter what the likelihood that we carry it in the fall, our staff will build volunteer capacity that will provide help where we need it and impact races up and down the ballot this November.

Every day counts — voters head to the polls in less than five months.  This is your opportunity to shape this election and our unprecedented 50-state campaign now:

http://my.barackobama.com/getinvolved

Thanks to your support, we are on our way to building an unprecedented organization for the November elections.

As the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama will fight to unite our party and win contests up and down the ballot.

But he cannot determine the outcome of this election on his own.

It will all come down to what you are willing to do.

It’s time to answer the call.

Thank you,
David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Blogging is likely to be a bit sparse again for a while. I just started a new contract through the company I work for, and I’ll be doing some overtime in order to be able to take off in August to go with Rob and the rest of the Amicus gang to the DNC in Denver. And I have to admit, I’m loving the new job. It’s so odd to work for a company that has written decent, organized code, and gives good requirements. In fact, I was able to write code on my first day there, and finish it by the second. I’ll be there around 90 days, and I have a feeling I’ll be happy there right up until the end of the contract.

Nikki Norton is being drafted as my Co-Chair for Utah for Obama tomorrow night. She’s been a lifesaver as of late, and I’m glad she’s finally agreed to it. She was highlighted in this TIME.com article:

Utah is hardly the place that jumps into most Democrats’ minds when brainstorming about red states where they have a chance to make headway this November. The Beehive State was one of just three states in which President George W. Bush swept every county in 2004 — all of them except for two with more than 55% of the vote. In the state’s 2008 primaries on Super Tuesday, Republican voters outnumbered Democrats by a margin of 2.5 to 1.

None of that, however, has discouraged Nikki Norton and her band of 40 volunteers from organizing for Obama ahead of the General Election. And surprisingly, it hasn’t deterred the Obama campaign from formally helping Norton by investing in the state; Norton, co-chair of Utah for Obama’s grassroots campaign, got a call a couple of days ago telling her to expect paid staffers to arrive within the next month. “Even if we don’t win Utah we definitely want to create a downstream effect for local candidates,” Norton said. “It could also force [Republican presumptive nominee John] McCain to defend Utah; he might have to split his resources for a state like ours where he probably wouldn’t have needed to before. And our volunteers had a big effect on border swing states, particularly in rural areas in Nevada, and that was a big benefit for Obama [who won Nevada's delegate count over Hillary Clinton by dint of his rural victories].”

From the earliest days of his upstart campaign, Obama pledged to run a 50-state effort, vowing to move past the traditional partisan divide and expand the electoral map by appealing to independents and even Republicans. But few people, even in his own staff, thought he’d actually invest in every single state. As it turns out, Obama’s phenomenal fundraising has allowed him to deliver on his bold promise and place campaign staff in every one of the 50 states, as his campaign announced it would Monday. The strategy could force McCain to defend Republican strongholds, may help those lonely Democratic candidates in so-called Red States and could further expand Obama’s already massive volunteer and donor bases (indeed, the move was announced in a fundraising e-mail plea to donors).

Obama is able to do this, in part, because of the grueling, drawn-out delegate fight with Clinton that only just ended. The long primary season forced the campaign to build bases of support for the Illinois senator in every single state. The dividends of the high-profile Democratic presence are already being felt. Earlier this year, Democrats picked up three long-held GOP congressional seats in special elections in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois. The party is also mounting House challengers in 14 states that Bush won in 2004, including Wyoming, Alabama and Arizona. And Democratic candidates are contesting at least five GOP stronghold seats in the Senate: Alaska, Kentucky (Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s seat), Nebraska, Kansas and New Mexico. “Senator Barack Obama’s plan to compete in all 50 states is a reflection of the overwhelming desire for change that is transcending state boundaries and has energized voters in every corner of the country,&q uot; said Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, who runs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democratic candidates.

No one contends that the 50-state strategy is Obama’s brainchild; it actually comes from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who not so long ago took a lot of heat from Democrats angry that he was squandering their limited resources on perceived long shots in the south and west. But after his gamble paid off in 2006, when Dems won both chambers of Congress, his expansive notion suddenly seemed a lot more viable. “The 50-state strategy has been historic — just the enthusiasm that our volunteers have, that our candidates have, that our party is visible and active even before the campaign, it pays off on so many levels for a state like Kansas,” said Mike Gaughan, executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party. In a state where only two out of 105 counties voted for John Kerry in 2004, Democrats took a House seat, six seats in the Kansas Legislature and the attorney general’s office from the GOP in 2006. “We saw Obama’s staff at w ork here during the primary season. They had organized on the ground back from October for the February 5 caucuses,” Gaughan said. “The way that they activated their supporters is going to pay dividends” for all Kansas Democratic candidates as the party seeks to expand its presence there.

I’ve been telling people for a while, that we’re in this to win, and that Utah for Obama is going to put effort into getting Utah to go blue this November. It’s very, very, very gratifying to find out for sure that the Obama campaign believes in us. Then again, that’s kind of why we believe in the Obama campaign, huh?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:34 pm and is filed under 2008 election, Barack Obama, Democrats, Utah, Utah for Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.