August 29, 2007

OBAMA: Growing Pains

Responding to Zach Exley's Huffington Post piece on Barack Obama's field organization plans, Open Left's Matt Stoller casts doubt on Obama's ability to build "a parallel and under-the-radar organization that is community and organizer based." Stoller remembers: "In 2006 during the Lieberman-Lamont primary, Lieberman brought in a 'legendary' New Jersey operative to run a 'legendary' field campaign. They lost by 4 points anyway. In the general, Lieberman basically didn't do field, and he crushed Lamont's 'legendary' field campaign by 10 points."

Stoller then links to other reports from the field on Obama's ground efforts at The Huffington Post. Mayhill Fowler reports from Oakland, CA, suggest independent Obama efforts are having a tough time coordinating their efforts and Glynnis Macnicol Brooklyn, NY, Obama campaign encounter led her to conclude: "Tonight's rather large misstep in terms of crowd expectation and basic organization may just be an example of growing pains in a campaign that is still learning the ropes - or, it may be a sign of stress fractures in structure not fully prepared to go the distance."

In other Obama tidbits:

• Matthew Yglesias finally remembered to post on the importance of "Zbigniew Brzezinski's endorsement of Barack Obama." From Yglesias: "I see this as a significant development. Brzezinski is one of the leading members of what you might call the foreign policy counterestablishment that's slowly emerged over the past four years."
• a Daily Kos diarist sums up Politico coverage of ex-VA Gov. Doug Wilder's kind words for Obama: "Wilder is a prickly and often unpredictable man -- he infamously has supported George Allen in the past -- so his support of Obama's campaign is by no means reflexive or automatic. It indicates Obama is a viable candidate in Virginia -- a must-win state for the GOP in 2008.
• Talk Left's Jeralyn Merritt notes that Stop the Drug War is not impressed with Obama's drug policy: "Obama's drug war revitalization plan for New Orleans is the latest step in his successful bid to be the worst on drug policy among the democratic presidential contenders."

Posted by Conn Carroll at August 29, 2007 01:01 PM