The Democratic Race: Obama Dominating Online Organizing of Offline Events
By Micah L. Sifry, 01/15/2008 - 5:43pm

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Time for another periodic look at grassroots activity being generated by the top Democratic campaigns, which give their supporters online tools to organize and advertise local house parties, fundraisers, phone-banking and the like. With Nevada, South Carolina and then the February 5 mega-primary states coming up soon, I looked for events within 100 miles of Las Vegas and Raleigh, and then turned my attention to the major cities in the big primary states. The bottom line? Obama's supporters are blowing Clinton and Edwards away.

Location Clinton Obama Edwards
Las Vegas, 89110 1 8 0
Raleigh, 27601 1 6 0
San Diego, 92122 6 55 30
Los Angeles, 90012 8 170 0
San Francisco, 94101 9 189 29
Phoenix, 85014 1 5 0
Denver, 80201 16 87 12
Atlanta, 30301 20 37 3
Little Rock, 72201 4 7 0
Chicago, 60601 3 43 5
Cambridge, 02138 16 52 3
Minneapolis, 55401 5 37 3
St. Louis, 63101 4 28 4
New York, 10011 13 292 0

Here's a look at Obama's event map for the San Francisco area:

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This is a great chart, very

This is a great chart, very useful.

One of the fascinating aspects of this campaign cycle is that campaigns largely have not figured out--as many of us predicted they would--the most effective way to use out of state support. Those of us on the Dean (and I imagine Clark) campaigns felt like we found out that people were willing to do extraordinary things--and spend hours doing them--but we didn't quite figure out the most useful way a Vermonter could help in NH, or a North Carolinian in SC. We asked people to make calls and canvass, but assumed that in 2008 a new revelation would come along, or develop, where we figured out more ways for out-of-staters to be really useful.

I'm inclined to think its a good thing for democracy that we haven't (as frustrating as it is as an Obama supporter in NC) -- its good that by and large, local organizing is going to make more of a difference than extraterritorial electioneering.

How does that relate to Micah's post? The LOCAL offline meetings organized in the way these campaigns are trying are going to be all the more important -- and while Obama's doing the best, the numbers here are still trivial compared to what you'd need for a massive local impact.

By Zephyr Teachout at Tue, 01/15/2008 - 8:58pm | login or register to post comments



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