After Elections, Obama Launches Permanent Electoral Campaign

The president has transformed his electoral committee Obama for America into Organizing for Action, which will have the task of promoting his reforms to the public, from health care to gun control. This is the first time that the White House has provided itself with a dedicated army of supporters to pressure Congress. The president of Democracy 21 critiques the move as “unprecedented.”

“You can’t change Washington from the inside” was Obama’s mantra during the electoral campaign. The “most important” lesson he learned in his first term was that, with the House of Representatives in the hands of the Republicans, thinking about achieving his plans through negotiation and political compromise was pure illusion. Thus, for the four difficult years ahead, Barack Obama has changed his strategy: he has transformed Obama for America, the electoral committee which brought him victory in his re-election (with 18 million supporters), into Organizing for Action, a nonprofit group external to the party. Organizing for Action will have the task of promoting the president’s desired reforms to the public, from Obamacare to gun control, and from tax reform to immigration. It promises to be a permanent electoral campaign, with mass mobilization of supporters as well as massive mobilization of money. It is the first time in history that a president has provided himself with his own army of supporters to put pressure on Congress and persuade it to pass his laws. There are already shouts of scandal in the U.S. about the inadequate financial transparency of the system.

He announced this move in Chicago in his election night speech on Nov. 6, but few were wise to the extent of the change: “…that doesn’t mean your work is done,” said Obama to the supporters who won him re-election with their sweat and tears. Now, with the birth of Organizing for Action, the picture is clear. The first objective is Obamacare. The reform envisages compulsory health insurance for 32 million poor by 2014. If the objective fails, it would be an epochal defeat for the president. Thus, writes Politico.com, his supporters are moving: Organizing for Action is using the 20 million email addresses it inherited from Obama for America to contact, one by one, those who are entitled to insurance and convince them to take out a policy. Another organization, Enroll America, will back up Organizing for Action and take care of flooding TV, radio and social networks with spots promoting Obamacare. Meanwhile, thousands and thousands of activists will go door-to-door and turn the country toward the campaign, in full electoral style.

The list of objectives is long. The law on gun control presented on Jan. 16 waits to pass through Congress. It will be difficult to convince not only the Republicans, who are historically linked to the industry’s manufacturing lobbies, but also many Democrats. Thus, Obama aims to fuel indignation in the stomach of a public still upset by the Newtown massacre. The goal is to create pressure on Capitol Hill and force Congress to pass the restrictions. The same strategy will be applied to the other reforms awaiting approval, from immigration, presented on Jan. 29, to the tax system. “Sitting across the table from other elected officials in a fancy room in Washington doesn’t move an agenda,” explained Jen Psaki, director of the two Obama campaigns, to The Atlantic. “The only way,” Jim Messina, director of Organizing for Action, told Politico.com, “is to play the game from the outside.”*

But the game is fueling fiery controversy. Organizing for Action is a 501(c)(4): a nonprofit group that by law can collect money without limit and without having to declare the quantities or sources of donations. In the last electoral campaign these types of organizations collected around $200 million (known as “dark” or “shadow money”); this money was used principally by the Republicans to attack Obama with TV spots, inciting the ire of Democrats. “It is recycling dirty money,”* attacked Jerry Brown, governor of California, on Oct. 20. Obama himself has always fought against the noxious relationships between donors and politicians: “The elections should not be influenced by the biggest and most influential power groups,”* he thundered in 2010 after the Supreme Court’s green light to the Super PACs, financed without limit by corporations. This excludes his support of Priorities USA Action in 2012 [a Super PAC that supported Obama’s re-election].

Organizing for Action will also receive donations from the biggest corporations. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21 (an association that fights for transparency of political funding), told Politico.com that this action was “unprecedented” and a way “to provide direct financial resources to support the president’s interests.” The conflicts of interest are already evident. For example, the board of Enroll America includes the heads of pharmaceutical houses (Teva Pharmaceuticals) and health and insurance lobbies (from Blue Shield of California to Kaiser Permanente). And the distribution of funding is yet to begin.

* Editor’s Note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.