Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer -- Obama's Secret Weapon: OFA
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To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 10:17:55 EST
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Obama’s Secret Weapon: OFA 

In a season when the  political punditry stampeded its way into 
prognostications of Democratic  political disaster this fall, it is well to remember 
that Democrats – and the  Obama political operation – have a weapon, the 
importance of which Washington types don't  fully understand: Organizing for 
America (OFA).   
There is no question that the mid-term  elections are fraught with 
political danger.  For Democrats to hold our own this fall  will require that we do 
six things: 
·       Demonstrate to voters  that we are fighting tooth and nail for the 
fundamental change that they  supported in 2008 – and still support today; 
·       Deliver real economic  recovery for average Americans that average 
people can begin to see for  themselves by next fall; 
·       Pass a legislative  agenda that lays the foundation for long-term, 
widely-shared economic growth –  health care reform, re-regulation of Wall 
Street, creation of clean energy jobs,  and comprehensive immigration reform; 
 
·       Frame the battle in  personal, populist terms that puts the blame 
for our economic crisis where it  belongs – on the Wall Street bankers whose 
reckless greed cost millions of  Americans their well-being; 
·       Continue to take the  offensive at framing the entire debate in 
terms of our progressive  values; 
·       Engage everyday  Americans directly in the many battles – including 
the November elections – that  will come at us rapid-fire for the next ten 
months. 
OFA provides a vehicle to help accomplish each of these goals that has  
never existed before.   
Organizing for America (OFA) – formerly Obama for America – was  
reorganized after the 2008 election with the object of creating a permanent army  of 
ordinary Americans that could create the grassroots fire necessary to pass  
Obama’s change agenda.  Over the  first months of 2009, the organization 
hired staff, set up local operations,  began to transform itself from a purely 
electoral operation into one that could  simultaneously line up 
Congressional votes for Obama’s initiatives – and  demonstrate to Members of Congress 
that it would have their backs next November.  
It was built upon the premise that fundamental change is impossible  
without massive grassroots activity.  After all, the insurance companies, big Wall 
Street banks, energy  industry and the Chamber of Commerce had no plans to 
roll over and play dead  just because Obama had been elected with a mandate 
for change.  
The correctness of that assumption became starkly clear in August when  the 
right wing organized – and big business financed – the Tea Party movement 
to  try to put a stake in the heart of health insurance reform.  
In 2005, I served as the National Field Director of the campaign to stop  
the Bush proposal to privatize Social Security.  That year we ran a massive, 
successful  effort to kill privatization during the August recess.  When 
Republicans returned to Washington in September  of that year, they marched 
into the Republican Leadership’s office and demanded  that they throw in the 
towel on Social Security privatization. 
Exactly the same thing would have happened with health care reform in  
September of 2009 had OFA had not stepped up to coordinate a counter-offensive.  
For those of us working to pass health  insurance reform it was like the 
cavalry arriving over the hill.  OFA chaired a task force of progressive  
organizations – and mobilized thousands of health care reform supporters to  
attend town meetings across the country.  That effort turned the tide in the 
last weeks of August and saved health  insurance reform.   
AFSCME, SEIU, the AFL-CIO, MoveOn, Americans United for Change, Families  
USA, AARP, NEA and especially Health Care for America Now (HCAN) – that  
spearheaded the fight --  have all  played critical roles in this battle. None 
of them would dispute the decisive  role played by OFA.  
Together these organizations generated millions of contacts with Congress  
supporting health insurance reform. But no one has produced more than OFA, 
which  by itself has generated over a million calls to Congress.  
Last year, OFA organized their members to take over 2.5 million  individual 
actions – calls, door knocks, emails, faxes, and letters to the  editor.  
They have held over 25,000  events across the country on health care reform 
just since last June.  
In one day in August, 65,000 OFA members descended upon the offices of  
Members of Congress in support of health care reform.  
You can say without question, that if OFA did not exist, that the House  
and Senate would not be negotiating the final terms of health insurance reform 
–  that there would have been no health care reform at all.  
There are many Progressives – like me – who believe strongly that to  
fulfill the promise of health insurance reform, we must soon have a strong  
public option.  I believe that  before many of the provisions of the current 
bill go into effect, that we will  have a public option.  But that will  happen 
because we are organized to defeat the insurance industry on the ground.  
To do it, we can’t just complain that  it’s not as easy to get it done as we 
had hoped.  We have to continue the kind of  organizing that OFA has been 
doing for the last three years – involving millions  of everyday people.  In 
other words  we have to live by the slogan: “don’t whine, organize.” 
Let’s be clear.  If some of the dire pundit  prognostications come true, 
Progressives won’t have any hope at all of passing  our agenda beginning in 
2011. If we lose vast numbers of seats in Congress, this  extraordinary 
opportunity for serious progressive change will be brought to a  screeching halt. 
To avoid that fate, we have to deliver  economic and legislative success 
this year. We have to pass a health care  bill that provides affordable health 
insurance to most Americans, eliminates  pre-existing conditions, reins in 
the power of the insurance industry and  doesn’t tax average workers’ 
benefits.  We have to re-regulate the Big Wall Street Banks.  We have to pass 
comprehensive  immigration reform and take major steps on the road toward 
creating clean energy  jobs.   
Most importantly, we have to deliver jobs for everyday Americans –  
beginning this year.  
And in the process we have to keep the base  of our party energized.  In 
1994,  the Republicans took over Congress mostly because Democrats did not go 
to the  polls. That cannot be allowed to happen again.  
To all of these tasks, the  organized energy of OFA’s 13 million members is 
indispensable – just as it was  to the campaign that elected Barack Obama 
president in the first place. It is  indispensable online, in the precincts, 
in town meetings and going door to door.   
In the fall of 2007 there was deep pundit skepticism that the Obama  
campaign’s enormous investment in intensive, no stone unturned, grassroots  
organizing had any chance at all of vaulting the underdog Obama to victory in  the 
Iowa caucuses. The campaign provided the infrastructure and culture that  
mobilized the activity of thousands of Labor and party activists, and 
thousands  more average individual voters. Of course by Election Day in 2008, no 
one any  longer doubted the power of grassroots political organizing.  But in 
Washington, it’s easy to forget.  
The thing that made the Obama  field operation unique was its culture.  Two 
aspects were particularly  critical: 
* It taught everyone in the organization how to think like an organizer –  
how to engage people based on their own self-interests and engage those  
interests to further the goals of the campaign. It believed in fully engaging 
volunteers – not simply using  them to accomplish a task. It was committed to 
empowering everyone in the  organization. OFA understood the central  
secret of good organizing:  that  meaning is the greatest motivator – that you 
get self-motivation through  inspiration.  OFA understood  that for someone to 
feel meaningful – to feel inspired – two things were  required.  First 
they had to feel  that they were part of something that was very important and 
larger than  themselves.  But second, they had to  believe that they could 
personally  play a significant role in achieving the goal.  That 
understanding of what motivates  people has permeated the organization to this day.  
* To its core, the Obama field  operation was committed to excellence in 
execution – to the proposition that  no stone could ever be left unturned – 
that no task was ever too small to be  done right. That’s why it won caucuses 
in tiny states.  That’s why it never left votes on the  table. 
In my 40 years of work doing grassroots organizing for issue and  electoral 
campaigns I have never seen a better field operation that the one  created 
by OFA.  It was, without  doubt, the best field program in American 
political history.  
Many of the same organizers who build OFA during the campaign have  created 
the new OFA.  They have  crafted a growing infrastructure that will allow 
millions of everyday people to  team up with MoveOn members, rank and file 
union activists, and leaders from the  faith, minority and women’s communities 
to take on the vested interests in every  corner of America.  Just as it 
did in the Iowa caucuses, that infrastructure could well provide the  
foundation for surprising victories – both in Congress and the November  elections 
-- that the Washington pundits think are impossible.  After all, surprising 
the pundits is what  OFA does best. 
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and  strategist, and 
author of the recent book:  “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” 
available on _Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-
1)  

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