Shadow Elite: Has the Obama Organizing Machine Staged A Party Takeover?

[davidinalameda]

from HuffPo

Do you know the President of the United States? No, we don't either, but you wouldn't know it from looking at our in-boxes, which have quite a few emails directly from, well, "Barack Obama," Vice President Biden, and a handful of deputies. Perhaps yours does too, if you're one of the 13 million people whose emails were collected during the 2008 presidential campaign.

The emails are the product of something quite novel in the annals of American politics, what Nation journalist Ari Melber calls "the largest governance organizing effort by a national party in history," an unprecedented attempt to convert "a winning campaign's volunteer network into an organization devoted to enacting a national agenda." They come from Organizing for America, the successor organization to the eminently-wired campaign organization Obama for America. O.F.A. is both novel and controversial, because some believe the organization has sidelined the broader Democratic party going into the crucial midterm elections, as well as the traditional media and even Congress.

Janine, a social anthropologist who explores emerging configurations of power and governance, sees O.F.A. as a sign of the times. In her book Shadow Elite, she charts a new system of influence that's emerged in recent decades, shaping decisions at the highest levels of government and business in ways that skirt checks and balances and defy accountability. Increasingly, top power brokers are bending traditional rules of both the state and the private sector; utilizing a rise in executive power; bypassing bureaucracies, personalizing and/or creating alternative structures; emphasizing loyalty to one's self, one's allies and one's cause rather than a broader organization; taking advantage of the very latest technology; and playing with the truth to brand and market their own agendas.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janine-r-wedel/emshadow-eliteem-has-the_b_639084.html

[FrenchieCat]

1. Is that supposed to be good or bad?

"...;and playing with the truth to brand and market their own agenda"

Whoo....just like Hitler! :scared:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FrenchieCat]

4. You mean that he's not perfect like GOD?

Getta out of here!

[davidinalameda]

21. contrary to some people's belief

he's not

[mkultra]

22. i dont think anyone thinks he is God...

i just think few give a shit about the complaints being brought up.

[sandnsea]

3. Oh honestly

Yesterday everyone was bitching because they weren't controlling the message.

You know, some people need to go to their local homeless shelter or food bank and actually DO SOMETHING for a change.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Ain't that the truth!

They can't make up their mind.

It's like a neverending Goldilocks tale, although nothing is ever just right. :rofl:

[brentspeak]

11. "They"?

Are "they" after you? In your breakfast cereal?

[Hutzpa]

17. It's same like it ever was. n/t

[ProSense]

8. .

:rofl:

[brentspeak]

10. Who's "everyone"?

[mkultra]

23. bing fucking oh

[xchrom]

5. It's vertical and horizontal taking control.

It was the 'future' before Obama - theyre simply
better at making the best use of the tactic.

It helps when you have a nudnik like
kaine at the wheel at the dnc and and
real abandonment of the 50 state strategy.

[FrenchieCat]

7. How has the 50 state strategy been abandonned?

[xchrom]

9. Um - Scott Brown? Nt

[FrenchieCat]

12. That special election with the lousy candidate who stuck her foot in her mouth?

Oh, OK.

So do you have anymore examples to hold up your statement of
the abandonment of the 50 state strategy?

[brentspeak]

13. Not to mention Chris Christie

[xchrom]

15. That's true. Nt

[ProSense]

14. Yeah, that's Obama's fault, not the Democrats with the twisted notion

that voting for Scott Brown was going to effect change or teach the Democrats a lesson.

Where's the Democrat who should have won:

Statement of Attorney General Coakley Regarding the Landmark DOMA

[jonnyblitz]

19. I bet if Coakly had one you would have claimed it was all

Obama's doing.

[ProSense]

20. If Coakley had won,

there would be no need to question what the hell some Democrats were thinking.

You make it sound like all that matters is whether or not Obama gets credit.

[mkultra]

25. well, if she had won, it wouldnt have been due to her.. so yeah

we would need to look elsewhere for cause.

[mkultra]

24. lol, there was nothing that could save her from herself.

[Hutzpa]

16. Looks like the bitching never stops

damn if do and damn if he doesn't

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch


:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

[politicasista]

18. LOL!

:rofl: :rofl: