"It's a bust!" That's what McClatchy's Franke Greve concludes about Organizing for America's house meetings to generate support for the Obama stimulus package.
Few supporters are answering President Barack Obama's call for nationwide house-party gatherings this weekend to build grass-roots support for his economic stimulus plan.I think it's too early to reach that conclusion. More than 30,000 people have submitted questions, according to Organizing for America. They're expecting tens of thousands of people to participate in more than 3,330 meetings. The grassroots activity and pressure is a downstream effect of the meetings themselves, so it's probably not fair to judge the outcome before there really is an outcome. Online signups don't accurately reflect total interest -- and during the campaign, there were thousands of paid field organizers and volunteers helping to set up meetings and events. These events -- these 3,330 events -- are totally volunteer generated. NB: President Obama recorded a video for his supporters.A McClatchy survey of sign-up rosters for a score of cities across the country revealed only 34 committed attendees in Tacoma, Wash., as of midafternoon Friday; in Fort Worth, Texas, only 54, and in Sacramento, Calif., just 78.
"Before the election, we would have had 500 to 800," said Kim Mack, 46, a Sacramento city-facility manager who's hosted house parties for political figures and causes since the mid-'90s.
Agreed with your assessment, but I think there's more to it than that. Activists aren't sales people. And the way this stimulus package development has played out has been that the grownups went into a room and created some legislation and asked us to try to sell it. That may work for some people, but I think most of us need to participate more in the process. In some ways, I empathize with the Republicans here who claim they were shut out.
I know we had an opportunity to submit suggestions and questions to the transition team, but when we have no understanding of the boundaries and expectations of the plan, that really feels pointless to a lot of people. Saying something like "spend money on transportation" doesn't feel like participation. It feels like talking down to people who should already know that.
It would have been cool if they had gotten working groups together around the country to create their own stimulus packages using specified guidelines and goals and then have those plans submitted to the transition team for their information. Doing so would have given people an investment in the process, some experience with the challenges of creating legislation, and a feeling of inclusion. (It's like when parents give their kids their own little shopping carts at the grocery store.) And if nothing else, it would have been neat to see what kinds of plans people in different parts of the country would have come up with. Then, the president could hold up our plans as a means of demonstrating the issues that Americans really care about. Which, for some reason, appears to be in question.
Slag, I like the idea of house meetings to come up with and submit ideas for a stimulus package directly to the WH... in fact we did something very similar with the Democratic party platform back in July, and participation, at least where I was, was pretty high. That said, I think the timetable involved here made such a thing pretty much impossible... MAYBE we could have held such meetings back in early January, but OFA 2.0 was just in its embryonic stage then (the first house meetings post-election took place just before the holidays, and they were still seeking the opinions of volunteers about what the new organization should look like), plus there was the push for the National Day of Service as part of the inauguration festivities, AND the festivities themselves, which would have been a big distraction. And if there had been meetings of the sort you're describing AFTER that point they would have felt gimmicky, largely because they would have BEEN gimmicky. The House version of ARRA was introduced 5 days after Obama took office... there's just no way house meetings could have been held, imput sent out, weeded through, taken into account and written into a bill in that period of time.
So yeah, short version, there IS a precedent in the organization for what you're describing, I just think the timetable here was impossible.
And I want to wholeheartedly second Ambinders assessment of the situation. The idea of using the campaign infrastructure to lobby for legislation is new to everyone involved, and I can understand why some of our supervols feel kind of lost in making the transition.
I think the biggest missing factor here - and yes, I admit to being a tad biased here - is the lack of permanent staff on the ground guiding the transition. When there is no staff there is no real accountability, there is no direct link from top of the chain to the bottom, and that gap makes volunteer leadership feel less supported and therefore makes them less likely to innovate and participate.
A dedicated organizer would have the time to continually refresh the volunteer base in the way that must be done when dealing with changing issues and volunteers with changing lives. Right now OFA 2.0 is going strictly off of a list of "tagged" team leaders and supervolunteers that organizers chose during the general election. Thing is, some of them will no longer be willing or able to dedicate the same amount of time to the cause. And at the same time, other people might be MORE willing to get involved now then before, maybe even just for one bill or issue (this, I think, will prove especially true as we start moving into specific issue-oriented legislation - there will be people who care enough about health care to volunteer for that bill alone, or for EFCA alone, or for the overturning of dont ask dont tell alone). In order to maximize the strength of the organization, you need people constantly talking to all democratic and independent voters, and that won't happen on a volunteer only basis.
I also think an organizer, with their direct contacts higher up in the organization and the time to research and, well, organize would be better suited to guide volunteers who aren't sure what kind of concrete activity or action their house meetings should be centered on planning. They can get approval to lobby specific representatives, or to set up specific service events, and they can pass suggestions along to their bosses etc. I don't know how much back and forth there is right now between the supervols and the higher-ups at OFA 2.0, but I'm willing to bet its significantly diminished.
I HOPE THIS WORKS! I genuinely do. I DO believe that there are people out there who could be fired up all over again... OFA just needs to jump on this, get the structure in place quickly, before people completely go back to their normal lives and forget the importance of what it is we did. If this works, it could magnify the power of the presidency in important ways, which I think is something that would make all our volunteers (and staffers, and voters) happy.
I got the email, but had no interest in attending a meeting. I did, however, call both of my Republican senators and urge passage of the bill. I don't understand why they did not simply recommend that to people. Easier & more to the point.
Thanks Marc for adding perspective. You are correct when you say the number of house party participants does not quantify the level of effort activists are putting into spreading the word about the stimulus plan. Some people are spreading the word through email rather than house parties. Other people are writing letters to the editor. My 70 year old mother and father have started a groupIt is unbelievable to me that people are STILL underestimating this group.
Second the idea that they should ask people to actually DO something -- call Congresspeople, write letters to the editor, whatever. The reason I volunteered during the campaign was because it was satisfying to feel like you accomplished something with each canvass.
I also think it would have been a great idea to set up a website or something that would serve as a clearinghouse for information on the stim -- like the tax calculator on the campaign website -- people could look up where the spending would go in their own states and localities. The site could also refute the GOP arguments against the bill, along the lines of the fight the smears site.