Thursday, October 16, 2008

Obama's Organisers

I found an article here by Al Giordano on how the Democrats are organising themselves at the grassroots level.

It's interesting stuff for political campaigners anywhere. Here's a sample:

Now that Debrah has settled into her role as one of Obama's Toledo Community Directors, she's amazed at the sophistication of the Obama structure. As a Community Director, she oversees three Neighborhood Team Leaders, volunteers who comprise the heart of Obama's volunteering infrastructure. Each neighborhood team, in turn, has up to five different coordinators: (1) the canvass coordinator; (2) the phonebank coordinator; (3) the volunteer coordinator; (4) the data coordinator; and (5) where applicable, the faith coordinator.

In Ohio, Campaign for Change State Director Jeremy Bird told us, there are 1,231 defined neighborhoods, as of August 25 there were about 800 in place, and as of Saturday approximately 1,100 NTLs had been tested and were up in operation. By "tested," Bird said, each NTL had undergone and met a series of specific challenges the field organizers had presented.

First, can the potential NTL organize a group of people? Whether by hosting a house party, a faith forum with a church group, or some other type of organizational meeting, the potential NTL needs to show they can lead the organization of their neighbors.

Second, can the potential NTL pass the voter contact test? Can he or she lead a canvass, can he or she build a group phonebanking night? It's a leadership test, built around voter contact.

Third, are they willing to make the final commitment by attending specific training for their role? Debrah Harleston smiled as she told us about the imminent blooming of satellite offices throughout the Toledo area so that neighborhood teams can begin running right in the neighborhoods autonomously.

3 comments:

Bernard Salmon said...

This is not the first thing I've seen which focuses on Obama's impressive ground campaign. Not only does Obama have more paid staff, more offices and more volunteers than McCain, it also seems to be very tightly organised and running smoothly as well. I would expect that Obama's get out the vote operation might well be enough to make the difference in some key states.

Roger Owen Green said...

"Community director". Is that anything like a community organizer?

Liberal Neil said...

It sounds quite similar to a 'ward organiser' who might lead a team which includes a delivery organiser, a canvass organiser, a stakeboard organiser, a data manager etc.

Chris expresses his own views on this weblog.


I write this blog in a private capacity , but just in case I mention any elections here is a Legal Statement for the purposes of complying with electoral law: This website is published and promoted by Ron Oatham, 8 Brixham Close , Rayleigh Essex on behalf of Liberal Democrat Candidates all at 8 Brixham Close.