National Focus Poses Challenge for Obama: Nationwide campaign less suited to intensive organizing

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: National Focus Poses Challenge for Obama
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 8, 2008; Page A08


Sen. Barack Obama has been able to campaign intensively in Iowa and New Hampshire, but after the Granite State primary he will be operating on a more national basis, especially with more than 20 states having a primary or caucus on Feb. 5. His campaign expects him to do well in "open" primaries, in which independents are allowed to vote. (Preston Keres/WP)

CONCORD, N.H., Jan. 7 -- For months, Barack Obama's presidential campaign has focused its organizational abilities on the small, well-defined canvas of Iowa and New Hampshire, where the senator from Illinois has been able to make his case face to face with large proportions of the electorate and aides had the time to build support precinct by precinct. After Tuesday's primary, that compact canvas will be ripped apart, replaced by a nationwide campaign less suited to the kind of intensive organizing that Obama has used to such effect in the first two voting states. He will have to campaign in Nevada, which holds a caucus on Jan. 19; in South Carolina, which will vote on Jan. 29; and in more than 20 states that vote on Feb. 5, including giants such as California, New York and Texas.

For Obama supporters around the country, the question becomes: Where next? Can the campaign, with all its momentum, hold its own in a nationwide fight for delegates against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), who despite her current troubles still has most of the Democratic establishment behind her? With so little time available, and so many fewer opportunities for personal contact, can he win over voters in states in which he has until recently lagged far behind Clinton in the polls?

Obama campaign officials say they are more than ready for what is to come, pointing to vibrant volunteer networks in all the coming states, as well as offices and paid staff on the ground in all but five of them -- Delaware, Connecticut, New Mexico, Arkansas and Tennessee. The campaign has placed a particular emphasis on Feb. 5 states with a caucus, such as Minnesota and Colorado, believing they will be well suited to Obama's grass-roots approach. Steve Hildebrand, Obama's deputy campaign manager, said the campaign is planning to compete on Clinton's home turf of New York because the state awards primary delegates proportionally and by congressional district, and not in a winner-take-all fashion. If Obama does well in parts of the state, as his campaign expects, he could walk away with as much as 40 percent of its delegates.

The campaign expects to do particularly well in about half of the Feb. 5 states that hold "open" primaries, meaning they allow independents to vote. These include the biggest prize of all, California; Hildebrand says volunteers have been making an average of 6,000 completed calls to voters per night. More immediately, campaign officials are highly confident in their organizations in Nevada and South Carolina. Hildebrand said the campaign expects to make an all-out effort in Nevada, although Clinton is backed by Rory Reid, a Clark County commissioner and the son of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid. Obama hopes to gain the endorsement of Nevada's powerful culinary workers' union, which may announce its pick on Wednesday....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010703141.html

[HeraldSquare212]

1. The headline suggests Clinton wasn't doing the same intensive organizing

they both have the same issue, it's just the nature of the beast.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. True. I guess the emphasis might be on Obama's roots as a community organizer...

although I don't know exactly how his campaign's organizing differs from that of the Clinton campaign.