Reply #56: Take your complaining up with the Sacramento Bee--they wrote the story. Here it is:

[rodeodance]

Forum Name General Discussion: Primaries
Topic subject COME TO OBAMA! "Obama volunteers... share personal conversion stories"
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4445389#4445389
4445389, COME TO OBAMA! "Obama volunteers... share personal conversion stories"
Posted by bidenista on Wed Feb-06-08 06:23 PM

Not a cult. Nuh-uh. Definitely not:

Obama basic training
Volunteers told to share personal conversion stories with voters - not policy views.
By John Hill

In a storefront on Q Street in Sacramento, Kim Mack told a crowd that spilled out onto the sidewalk how she came to back Barack Obama. With a son serving in the Iraq war, which she opposed, Mack was looking for a like-minded presidential candidate. She was impressed by the Illinois senator's books. But the clincher came on March 17, when she met the Democratic contender face to face. She describes how he lit up the room with his wide smile, shook her hand and thanked her for volunteering.

"He looked at me, and the look in his eyes was worth 1,000 words," said Mack, now a regional field organizer. Obama hugged her and whispered something in her ear – she was so thrilled she doesn't remember what it was.

Then Mack brought home the point of her story for the crowd of 100 or so eager volunteers, sipping coffee and watching a PowerPoint presentation in the Obama campaign office on a recent Saturday.

"Did that make more impact on you than if I had talked about his health care plan or his stance on the environment?" she asked.

On the verge of a hectic few weeks leading to Super Tuesday, the crucial Feb. 5 multistate primary including California's, Mack wanted to drill home one of the campaign's key strategies: telling potential voters personal stories of political conversion. She urged volunteers to hone their own stories of how they came to Obama – something they could compress into 30 seconds on the phone.

"Work on that, refine that, say it in the mirror," she said. "Get it down."...

More: http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/649427.html


This story rates 5 out of 5 on the Little Kool-Aid Dude scale:



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Edited to add:

Even some Obama supporters are horrified. Over at TPM:

Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of "coming to Obama" in the same way born-again Christians talk about "coming to Jesus."

But he's not Jesus! He's not going to magically enable us to transcend the bitter partisanship that is tearing this country apart. And even if he is elected, in no way will that show that somehow we have "gotten beyond" race.

The Obama campaign's instruction to their volunteers to steer clear of policy questions. How can we truly bring about real political change if the movement the Obama people are building is devoid of ideological content, content merely to mouth gauzy generalities about "coming together" and "yes we can"? Such a movement becomes a cult or personality rather than engine for social justice and political transformation. And personality cults can be a huge turnoff to those who are not already drinking the Kool-Aid.

More: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/05/barack_obama_is_not_jesus/#more
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