Joshua Levy

The Rollover Campaign

Over the last two years, the Obama campaign used just the right blend of messaging and movement-building to be able to tap into the latent passions of the electorate. Now, this work is being done in support of an actual presidency poised to get stuff done with a significant electoral majority and favorable conditions in Congress.

As the transition team puts its ducks in a row and President-Elect Obama announces his cabinet picks, his volunteer-powered movement is also undergoing a transition, morphing into what is being colloquially called Obama for America 2.0, or OFA2. This raises some big questions about the role of independent movements and groups in the Obama era.

Some will argue that members of Obama for America will be uniquely able to dissent from within the group -- pointing to, among other things, the uproar over FISA that took place over the summer at my.barackobama.com and the ongoing conversation at Change.gov -- but if we can only apply pressure as a still-powerful movement from outside his administration. A strong counterweight to governance is what will help effect change from the bottom up.

And then there's Rick Warren. Now that progressives are upset over the decision to have Warren deliver the invocation at the inauguration, from which vantage point should they fight? There's an argument to be made that dissenting on Change.gov is the surest way to get the President-Elect's attention, and to offer some much-needed tough love. But then we risk allowing Obama to simply be transparent without actually acting on that transparency.

Better that we coalesce and act elsewhere. Like, for example, on Change.org's Ideas for Change in America project (and that's not just because I'm the managing editor there).

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Posted at 1:27 PM, Dec 19, 2008 in Progressives
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