WASHINGTON (AP) — Grass-roots volunteers flocked to
Barack Obama last time. This time, the president's campaign is in recruiting
mode.
Facing no primary challenger, Obama is trying to
rebuild a massive organization of supporters to help boost his efforts next
year in the face of a struggling economy and weakened political standing.
Obama's campaign has spent the past week holding
about 1,500 events around the nation, from small neighborhood gatherings to
one-on-one meetings in coffeehouses, marking the one year to go before the
incumbent Democrat faces the electorate. The events, including a chunk of them
this weekend, comprise the nuts-and-bolts of a campaign: local phone banks,
voter registration drives, door-to-door voter canvassing and house parties. And
they're all aimed at organizing the legions of activists who formed the core of
Obama's coalition in 2008 — black and Latino voters, women and college students
and voters entering the workforce — long before Election Day 2012.
Such activities could help determine next year
whether Obama can mobilize sufficient support to overcome the larger forces
acting against his campaign; namely, broad concerns among the public over
joblessness and the direction of the country as well as disillusionment among
some of his 2008 supporters.
Back then, Obama built a large base of volunteers
in dozens of states that held primaries and caucuses and then quickly moved on
to the general election. Many of the volunteers were drawn to Obama because he
was new to the national stage and sounding a message of hope and change. Such
support was said to contribute to victories in states typically unfriendly to
Democrats, such as Indiana and North Carolina.
But this time, Obama is the president with a
governing record that doesn't sit well with some who worked to help him get
elected.
His campaign is undeterred.
"Block by block, person by person, student by
student, we are going to build the biggest grass-roots effort in American
political history," declared campaign manager Jim Messina at an event
Wednesday at the University of Pennsylvania.
The campaign held the Philadelphia round-table
discussion to launch a program aimed at mobilizing young voters on college
campuses. Messina told about 250 college and high school students and others
watching online that there were 8 million registered voters between the ages of
18 and 21 who weren't old enough to vote in 2008 but would be harnessed to
support the president.
Yet, the young voters, many of whom were galvanized
by ending the Iraq war in 2008, are not an easy sell this time.
In 2008, Obama won voters between the ages of 18-29
by a margin of about 2-to-1, but polling has shown some signs of softening
support as many recent college graduates face high levels of unemployment. The
students heard from Messina, White House policy adviser Melody Barnes and
others who trumpeted the administration's support for college aid and efforts
to maintain health care coverage for young people.
Kyle Musto, a 17-year-old high school senior from
West Philadelphia, attended the event but said he was undecided as he considers
his first vote in a presidential election. "I have friends who are very
opposed to Obama. I have friends who are very pro-Obama. I'm very open to
anything," he said.
Meetings like this are more common because Obama
has avoided a Democratic challenger and his team can't point to contested
primaries and caucuses as reasons for people to get involved now. So they are
finding motivation elsewhere.
As Obama has tried to win passage of elements of
his jobs agenda in Congress, party loyalists regularly receive emailed updates
from campaign officials urging them to pressure Republican lawmakers by phone,
email or Twitter. At the Philadelphia event, students were encouraged to text
their ZIP code and the phrase "Greater Together," the name of the
young voter program, to the campaign so they could receive more information.
Students were also asked to urge their Facebook friends to support the
campaign.
Others point to the Republican presidential debates
as a motivating tool.
"Republicans have done a great job of firing
up the Democratic base, giving us a sense of who they are," said
Democratic strategist Steve Hildebrand, a top Obama campaign aide in 2008.
The 1,500 events will help the campaign assess the
status of its organization community by community. Volunteers have logged
thousands of phone calls encouraging past supporters to participate while on
Sunday, campaign staffers will fan out across the country for low-dollar
fundraisers in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Nashville,
Tenn., and Atlanta.
The campaign, meanwhile, is planning to use
January's Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary as a way of organizing tool
for 2012 — both states are expected to be contested in the fall election.
The approach resembles the extra attention
President Bill Clinton paid on the two states in 1996 even though he didn't
have a primary opponent. In the weeks before the early contests, Clinton and
top administration officials traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire to offer
rebuttals of the Republican field while the campaign held events around the
state.
Obama's campaign has opened eight offices across
Iowa and told reporters this week it had held more than 700 training sessions
and made more than 100,000 phone calls to Iowans since the campaign opened in
April. In New Hampshire, the campaign is opening its second office this weekend
and has logged more than 90,000 phone calls and 2,200 one-on-one meetings
across the state, all aimed at boosting turnout and support in 2012.
"You've got to sell this as a building block
for the general" election, said Charlie Baker, a veteran field organizer
of Democratic presidential campaigns who ran President Bill Clinton's New
Hampshire effort in 1996.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP
Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
