Where to go from here

It has been six days since Election Day and we have all had some time to think and reflect on its implications. Senator Barack Obama's amazing Presidential victory is potentially one of the four transformative elections in our nation's history, naturally only time and historians will determine that. My discusions with Political Scientists almost all conclude that Obama could be as important as Jefferson's, Lincoln's and Franklin Roosevelt's Administration in fundamentally changing America.

Many of you participated quite actively in some manner in this election cycle far outside of the comfort zone of being a casual spectatorand possibly voting. Of all the post election news pieces may I suggest you watch CBS's 60 Minutes episode produced just a few hours after Obama's victory speech in Grant Park, Chicago in the wee-early morning hours of November 5th. There Steve Kroft interviewed the four senior campaign leaders in a disarming revealing manner. CBS reported:

...They did it by recruiting and vesting millions of volunteers in the outcome, by raising more money than any campaign in history, and by largely ignoring that their candidate happed to be a black man....

The only person missing from the brain trust was the candidate himself. How big a role did he play in this campaign?

"Well, no one had a bigger role, you know. The great thing about our campaign was we didn't have a lotta discussion about what our message was or what he wanted to do," Plouffe said. "From the beginning, he knew exactly what he wanted to say. And it's one of the reasons we were successful. A lotta campaigns will spend hours every day wondering about how to change their message. And he was pretty clear about what he wanted to say, where he wanted to take the country, and either people would accept it or they wouldn't."

Axelrod recalled, "When we started the campaign, we met around a table like this. And there was just a handful of us. You know, we started with nothing. And Barack said to us, 'I want this to be a grassroots campaign. I wanna reinvigorate our democracy. First of all I think that’s the only way we can win and secondly I want to rekindle some idealism that together we can get things done in this country,"

Now where do we( in El Paso County) go from here? Well the mission seems obvious, to carry with the reinvigorating our democracy, right here in Colorado Springs!

Unlike any campaign beforehand Obama's left a grass roots organization ready to go its structure and framework to work off of. There were 26 Staging Location Directors who personally managed the county's GOTV Volunteer Field Offices. It was those organizations that recruited, trained and even deployed those thousands of volunteers on the ground. Within those organizations there are experienced canvass team captains, phone bank directors and volunteer coordinators not to mention comfort teams who directed many hundreds of volunteers in grass roots campaign activities. This cannot simply peculate down into the soil and simply disapear. So those of you who remain motivated and committed we can make changes in Colorado Springs for we have a network. But for this to work you must get involved.

First, I have called a general organizational meeting for November 18th at 7:00 PM at the Main Library, (Penrose) in downtown Colorado Springs, (25 N. Cascade) in the Carnegie Reading Room to discuss and attempt to begin formulating a consensus about how to proceed from this point. I have developed a draft agenda which I will include below. (If you think it needs amending please email me.)

Now this is not meant as a competing agenda with John Morris's (the El Paso Democratic County Chair), and his open forum scheduled for the following Saturday, November 22nd at the Hillside Center (10 AM), that said I am not being presumptive.

The local Obama network which emerged here was primarily accomplished from persons outside the El Paso County Democratic Party framework, where many volunteers and supporters were Independents and Republicans, even though the majority of its activists are Democratic. Going back even to the Caucus days, most of the Obama Precinct Captains and supporters were not regular party Democratic members, although a number of us like, Mike Maday, Kathy McQuinllan or myself were.

So there are two big questions we need to address next Tuesday evening.

1. Do we remain an identifiable and separate group outside the local Democratic Party?
2. If yes, under what kind of structure and purpose?
   

From that point I think things will emerge as we forge a vision. If we become a separate group or constituency, than individuals can and should be encouraged to join into the El Paso Democratic Party leadership and basically follow Obama's call to reinvigorate our local democracy with their idealism and willingness to work together in getting new things done. Other members who aren't compeled to join the Party should be encouraged to join other progressive grass roots groups where they too can reinvigorate those organizations. Creating a local Obama constituency can bring about real change even here in Colorado Springs.

Nate Hundt, the Obama Field Director wrote to me after the election:

Bob:

My advice would be to keep the teams in place....

Privately I have been told that the Obama network I received a link from the head of the Group Administrators, Chris Hughes regarding the future of MyBO:

Over the past 21 months, millions of individuals have used My.BarackObama to organize their local communities on behalf of Barack Obama. The scale and size of this community and its work is unprecedented. Individuals in all 50 states have created more than 35,000 local organizing groups, hosted over 200,000 events, and made millions upon millions of calls to neighbors about this campaign. There can be no question that these local, grassroots organizations played a critical role in Tuesday's victory.

What has made My.BarackObama unique hasn't been the technology itself, but the people who used the online tools to coordinate offline action. My.BarackObama has always been focused on using online tools to make real-world connections between people who are hungry to change our politics in this country.

And the site isn't going anywhere. The online tools in My.BarackObama will live on. Barack Obama supporters will continue to use the tools to collaborate and interact. Our victory on Tuesday night has opened the door to change, but it's up to all of us to seize this opportunity to bring it about.

In the coming days and weeks, there will be a great deal more information about where this community will head. For the moment, let's celebrate this victory and know that the community we've built together is just the beginning.

Privately, I have been told by persons in the campaign that they are looking for the Obama Network to be a political asset for major policy initiatives going forward. They have over 10 million email addresses but more importantly they a person-to-person network that if maintained even as a skeleton of its once final campaign self would allow Obama to go around the media and press and reach directly to his political base when needed.

Draft agenda for Tuesday November 18th for a post election Obama Organizational Meeting.

A) Do we continue to stay organized?

1) Under a separate framework and/or identifiable group(s)?

a) Do we keep the current HD/Team framework as suggested by Nate
b) Do we form a different framework or structure?
c) do we disband?

2) If we stay together do we fold into the El Paso County Dem Party?

a) as a separate constituency(s) or group(s)?
b) or integrated individually not as a group?

B) What would be its purpose and vision?

1) As a group or constituency what purpose will we serve?

a) Locally?
b) Statewide
c) Obama Presidency?

2) As a group or constituency what is our vision

a) Change means what locally?
b) Change means what politically
c) Change means what in the Democratic Party?

C) What are the political opportunities and timing?

1) El Paso County Democratic Party

a) Precinct Co-chair vacancies and inactive posts
b) Party leadership; executive council
c) Committee structure

2) Statewide Democratic Party

a) Committee's
b) Party Executive Council
c) Candidate organizations:

• Salazar reelection 2010
• Ritter reelection 2010
• Kennedy reelection 2010
• Attorney General 2010
  

3) Local Candidates

a) City Council races, 4 spots open in April 2009
b) County Commissioner County and City Volunteer Boards
c) County Clerk, Treasurer, Coroner, Sheriff (2010)
d) HD 18, 2018 plus HD 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, Senate 9 (2010)
e) Congressional Candidate 2010

4) Activism and/or NGO's