The Solipsists at Obama for America
by David Atkins
Today, every person on the Obama email list in California received this message:
David --
This movement is grown by people who pitch in wherever and whatever they can. Three years ago, thousands of us hopped into our cars or onto the bus and traveled to neighboring states to work side by side with volunteers there to make sure we were strongest in communities where it mattered most. No other campaign like this had ever done that on our size and scale.
It's time to do that again.
On November 5th and 6th, volunteers from California will travel to Nevada to help out on the ground there. We're starting this work now to help them grow the campaign early, knowing that this work will have a huge impact on the outcome in 2012....
This movement we're a part of is bigger than any individual state -- and what we stand for doesn't stop at the state border. What happens in both their state and ours shapes what we can accomplish nationally. And while this volunteer weekend is being held a year out from when we cast our ballots, the fight for progress is about more than just the outcome of a single election. That's why we all have to pitch in what we can, wherever that fight may be.
It is impossible to overstate the clueless irony of this email. November 5th and 6th is Get Out the Vote weekend for elections happening all around the state of California. The Obama campaign wants to drain California of its active volunteers to send them to Nevada, a year before the Presidential election, even as Californians themselves prepare to vote in just a few days.
This is a huge slap in the face to California Democrats who have been working hard in their own backyards for years. But it's even worse: The Obama campaign doesn't just hamstring California Democrats on election weekend. They have the gall to say "the fight for progress is about more than just the outcome of a single election. That's why we all have to pitch in what we can, wherever that fight may be."
Which is why the Obama campaign wants Californians to work on a single election over a year from now, instead of pitching in what they can where the fights actually are right now--namely, at home in California.
This is an incompetent move strategically, and disrespectful to the core volunteer base in California. But it's pretty much par for the course for the Obama campaign of late.
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