Obama And Chicago Politics Take Over The DNC"

Barack Obama’s move to merge key elements of the Democratic National Committee into his own campaign’s Chicago headquarters appears aimed at the goal of a centralized and united Democratic Party.

The shift of the DNC’s political and field organizing operations to Chicago will consolidate the Democratic presidential campaign apparatus more than in either of the last two cycles, when staffers at DNC headquarters overlapped – and occasionally competed – with aides to Al Gore and John Kerry.

Obama’s move also seemed aimed at producing minimum conflict: The DNC didn’t immediately fire any of its staff, and Obama’s aides have publicly embraced DNC Chairman Howard Dean’s vision of a party competitive in all 50 states. But it also left no doubt about where the new center of power lies: On the 11th floor of an undistinguished office tower on Michigan Avenue.

“We’re looking at every way possible that we can most efficiently run this campaign,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

DNC aides publicly welcomed the transition, which is a standard effect of any presidential nomination.

“I don’t think anyone could have ever predicted what’s about to transpire,” said DNC chief of staff Tom McMahon, who predicted that the combined Obama and party campaign would “dwarf” Democratic efforts in 2004.

The move to Obama’s headquarters puts the Windy City squarely at the center of American politics for the first time since it was the scene of a Democratic Party meltdown at the 1968 convention. Then and now, it’s a city whose central political feature – top-down machine control – is one legacy Obama has taken from his allies in the reigning Daley family. His campaign has been a model of leak-free discipline and clear lines of authority from the candidate and his guru, Chicago-based David Axelrod, through his campaign manager David Plouffe and a tight-knit staff.

Dean’s Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, has won the affection of state party officials by dispatching paid organizers to supplement state party staff in every state in the country, and has worked to update databases of voters. But it has been outmatched by the muscular Republican National Committee – which benefits from control of the White House – in fundraising and communication. In those latter areas, the RNC – in a mirror image of the Democratic side – has filled gaps in Senator John McCain’s smaller organization.

Now, Obama’s large, deep-pocketed effort seems set to absorb and transform the committee’s key functions, and to reshape it after its own model, and largely on its own turf—though Obama’s former Iowa state director, Paul Tewes, will remain in Washington to oversee the party’s fundraising and media operations there. Obama’s aides credit part of their success to the Chicago location, with its relative isolation from the national media.

“Pulling people into the same city is a good idea,” said David Wilhelm, an informal adviser to Obama who served as Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign manager in 1992 and is also a former DNC chairman. “It can have a very important effect on the outcome. A seamless level of coordination and collaboration between the national, state, and presidential campaign itself will mean the ground game can be effective and the 2 to 3 percentage points that can be the difference between winning and losing.”

But the move to Chicago also inspired some concern among Democrats who would prefer the party play a larger, independent function, and not merely serve the nominee.

“The DNC has responsibility beyond the presidential campaign—to senators and governors and members of the House of Representatives as well as state parties--and when you dismantle the DNC and move it to the same location of the presidential campaign headquarters, there could be an implication there that the move is being made to capture the DNC wholly for the presidential campaign,” said Donald Fowler, who served as DNC chairman during the 1996 presidential election.

Some state officials were less excited about the prospect that party staffers would report to Chicago rather than the state parties, but none voiced major objections.

"If that's the case and the DNC has signed off on it, that’s the way it's gotta be," said Abe Amoros, political director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

But the key aides will be working side by side in the sprawling cubicles in Chicago, effectively part of the same organization, a move that many Democrats praised as a welcome departure from the party’s balkanized tradition. One former DNC chairman, Steve Grossman, however, expressed concern that the demand that staffers leave their families behind in Washington to head to the center of power in Chicago – a common situation for Obama aides – would drive away some DNC staff.

    With some apprehension, the Democratic National Convention, has been taken over by the Barack Obama Chicago politics style campaign machine. For the sake of winning, people and organizations some times set aside principles and historical missions. I am sure if former Democrat contender, Senator Hillary Clinton, had made such a power move, there would be a hue and cry of political manipulating or "backroom politics" leveled at her.  The Richard J. Daley machine delivered the Presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960, "known for shrewd party politics, Daley was the prototypical "machine" politician, and his Chicago Democratic Machine, based on control of thousands of patronage positions, was instrumental in bringing a narrow 8,000 vote victory in Illinois for John F. Kennedy in 1960." This is a good example of Obama being a change from "Washington politics" but is "Chicago politics" any better?

tags: barack obama  dnc  democrats  2008  politics  takebackamerica  us  america  obama  president  

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