I’d like to follow up on what Jane said this morning. I’ve just got four questions for you.

Wisconsin Democrats just made a big move. The State Senate opened for business about an hour ago, and Democrats didn’t attend. Under the Wisconsin state Constitution, each chamber of the legislature needs 3/5 of the members present for votes on budgetary matters. This doesn’t matter much in the State Assembly, where Republicans have a large advantage. But in the State Senate, Republicans hold a 19-14 advantage. And 20 members are needed to conduct business on the budget.

We’ve officially gone around the bend. That’s right, the organizing project of the Democratic National Committee wants you to organize in support of freezing public worker salaries.

The White House is frequently very late to the game and getting involved in voter outreach only after the outcome has been decided. But the White House’s email list — managed and operated by Organizing for America — includes millions of people who don’t track this so closely. And because of that, this maneuver is the worst kind of cynicism. It creates the illusion that the White House is fighting for something when the fight has concluded. Those unaware supporters will think that Obama and Axelrod made a difference somehow, but they didn’t. Why isn’t the White House stepping up when it counts, to shape debate, rather than after the fact?

Welcome Ari Melber, and Host Daniel Galvin, author of, Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age The Obama for America campaign assembled the largest activist and volunteer network in history: 13 million email addresses, 4 million donors, 2 [...]

I see that my colleague bmaz referenced a post I wrote about a year ago back at Digby’s place, about how Obama the candidate was consolidating structures within the progressive movement – field, voter registration, fundraising, messaging, new media, organizing – into his Presidential campaign.

  Obama’s Organizing for America webcast from New York City, which seemed more like a campaign speech than a Presidential address, featured a very strong defense of the progress made in his first term, and a vow that he is “just getting started” on the change for which people voted last November. When challenged from [...]

  The campaign arm of the DNC, Organizing For America, has delivered over 150,000 phone calls, at last count, in favor of health care reform. The President himself will deliver remarks at a “Time To Deliver” call party tonight.   Less clear is what these callers are actually asking for in the health care reform [...]