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OFA kicks off midterm campaign drive (VIDEO)

PHOENIXVILLE—Less than two years after he leaned on a community-organizing-style effort to win the White House, President Obama and the political organization born out of his campaign are set for their biggest electoral test to date: the midterm elections.

Organizing for America, Obama’s arm of the Democratic National Committee, kicked off their 2010 efforts in earnest this weekend, with events throughout the country that brought candidates and volunteers together to begin the difficult work of trying to keep Obama allies in Congress during a year in which history says the Democrats will almost surely lose seats. In Pennsylvania, the group held dozens of events, including rallies in Bethlehem, Pittsburgh and Phoenixville, as the countdown to Election Day began. With thousands of volunteers across American and more than 1,300 events on Saturday, one OFA official called the task to come “the largest non-presidential year organizing effort in the history of the Democratic Party.”

Central to that effort is engaging voters who cast their ballots for the first time in 2008—precisely the kind of voter who often stays home for off-year elections.

“We’ve got a once in a lifetime opportunity to really alter the political landscape,” Elizabeth Lucas, OFA’s Pennsylvania director, told pa2010.com. “We’ve got to make sure that a generation of new voters stays involved in the process.”

Here in Phoenxiville, Democratic Senate nominee Joe Sestak and 6th District hopeful Manan Trivedi rallied about 90 volunteers during a morning event on Main Street.

“The world knows what you guys did in 2008, they know what you are capable of, and they know that you are going to answer the call to action to do it again in 2010,” Trivedi told the crowd. “Because in my opinion this election is even more important than 2008. Because if we don’t get it done in 2010, then everybody will think that 2008 was just a blip on the radar, was a fluke.”

Trivedi said he was so inspired by Obama’s “message that a brown kid with a funny name could go places in this country, that in 2009, that I ran for office myself. And now I am your Democratic nominee for congress.”

Sestak told OFA volunteers that “you don’t vote for change, you fight for change.”

In Bethlehem, 15th District candidate John Callahan rallied volunteers for the five-month push before Election Day. In Pittsburgh, rain forced an outdoor event to be moved inside, and a couple dozen volunteers showed up before going door-to-door. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato headlined the Pittsburgh event, and he emphasized the importance of having a good ground game for the coming elections.

For OFA, the stakes are high. The organization itself remains a novel experiment in political organizing. After focusing much of its efforts the last 16 months on pushing to advance Obama’s legislative agenda, the midterm election will amount to the group’s first large-scale test in electoral politics. In preparation, it has held training sessions throughout the state and the country. Volunteers have been surveyed to gauge what kind of work they prefer, and networks have been built on a foundation of local community leaders.

“Our success depends 100 percent on OFA volunteers,” Lucas said.

“We’re not going to reinvent the wheel,” she added. “This is what worked in 2008 and it’s what we’re going to lean on now.”

One thing that remains unclear is exactly where OFA resources will be allocated, and how those decisions will be made. Lucas said those decisions are still up in the air, but she said the group will be effective in moving numbers.

“We’re not going to go into a race saying we can generate 10 percent swings,” she said, “but we can provide important help on the margins.”

Lucia Thayer reported from Phoenixville and Michael Macagnone reported from Pittsburgh. Dan Hirschhorn contributed reporting from Philadelphia. See a video report by Thayer below.

June 6, 2010 at 11:40 am

--pa2010.com Staff

Tags: Dan Onorato, Joe Sestak, Manan Trivedi, OFA, PA-6

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