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David Plouffe meeting with OFA New England Steering Committee, 4/17/09

If you have been wondering what ever happened to David Plouffe, the mastermind of Barack Obama’s fundraising and field operation during the primaries and the general election campaign, here is the answer.  Plouffe is currently writing a book, and he has an informal role as a fundraiser for Organizing for America (OFA).  He’s also going around the country raising money for OFA from wealthy donors.  Last Friday, April 17, I was lucky to see him make a fundraising pitch to the Obama for America New England Steering Committee meeting at the Foley Hoag law firm in the Seaport district of Boston.  The NE Steering Committee was a fundraising arm of the Obama campaign, raising money for Barack Obama from high-income donors.  50 members of the Steering Committee raised $250,000 or more during the campaign.  Now, the Steering Committee is transitioning to support Organizing for America and other Democratic races.

Plouffe began his talk by noting just how key a role money played in allowing Obama to win certain battleground states that had not been battlegrounds in years.  Money enabled grassroots organizing to take place on a scale never achieved before in a political campaign.  In Plouffe’s words, “We were able to talk to every voter we wanted to talk with multiple times.”  Plouffe argued that the same focus on organizing at the grassroots level will be critical in helping Obama pass legislation over the next four years, and in electing Democrats.  Here are some fascinating numbers from his talk:

  • Obama spent $38 million in Florida and $31 million in North Carolina.  If OFA had spent less, Plouffe said, they wouldn’t have won these states.
  • Obama won 67 percent of the Hispanic vote, the widest margin of any presidential candidate ever.
  • There were 6 million active supporters during the campaign–these are people who either donated money or volunteered 10-20 hours a week in the general election.
  • Half of all of Obama’s active supporters had never been involved in a political campaign before, meaning they had never contributed and never volunteered.
  • Obama’s e-mail list grew to 13 million individuals.
  • OFA had 6,000 staffers in 16 battleground states
  • Currently, 68 percent of independents support President Obama’s agenda, which is a historically high number

Some of the more “inside baseball” details that I thought were interesting were the following.  Plouffe thinks that North Carolina will be a major toss-up again in 2012, but incredibly, he said that Virginia will not be a toss-up state.  There has been a sea change in Virginia politics, Plouffe said, that will make it very hard for Republicans to win there in the near future.  Having lived in Virginia for nearly a decade, that is a bold statement, and it may be overly optimistic.  Another major shift has occured in the Southwest, where Hispanics and independent voters allowed Obama to win in states that weren’t even close for Kerry in 2004–Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.  He said that Obama would have won Arizona if McCain hadn’t been from that state.  Plouffe also said that we must distinguish between Republicans and “Washington Republicans.”  The latter, he said, are in complete disarray, and will only be “throwing stones” at the President over the next few years because they don’t have any new ideas.  He advised the audience not to worry about Washington Republicans, but to focus on trying to persuade the many everyday Republicans who may be increasingly receptive to the Democrats’ message over the next few years.

His message about Organizing for America was that it will take the lessons learned of the 2008 campaign and transition into a field organization with a focus on governing as well as the upcoming 2010 elections.  It’s still in its early stages, it has a very small staff right now, and it needs financial support in order to place staff in congressional districts across the country.  In his talk, it was clear that Plouffe thinks the main value of this new organizing structure is to facilitate “people talking with people.”  I was surprised to hear that he was skeptical of the value of voters calling Congress, calling it a “discredited tactic”.  Instead, Plouffe seems convinced that one of the main ingredients of Obama’s succcess during the campaign was the team leader model, or in his words, having thousands of grassroots “message ambassadors” go out and talk to their friends, family, and neighbors.  As a member of the field staff during the general election, I can testify that having so many committed volunteers who were talking with neighbors played a major role in Obama’s win.  Trusting the messenger is becoming increasingly important in the age of 24 hour opinion-based news and tit-for-tat attack ads on TV.

When Plouffe’s talk was over, a crowd of admirers surrounded him, many with their business cards in hand.  I thought I wasn’t going to get a chance to meet him until, as I was leaving, I noticed him beside me walking to the elevator with a DNC staffer.  I asked him what he thought of the recent tea party protests against Obama.  He paused and said they were silly, but that we need to cut spending.  A candid statement from a straightforward, humble, and brilliant political operative.