This column has been obsessing over the future of the Republican Party, and rightly so, but in doing so, we've been missing an arguably more important story given the current political miliue: the backroom conversations that will define the future of the Democratic Party -- a party whose structure, function and funding threaten to be gobbled up by the infrastructure that Barack Obama has built, and the one that his campaign team is deciding how to perpetuate.
According to Obama transition sources, the development of OFA 2.0 is still in legal limbo to a degree, and there does not appear to be a consensus on what it will look like. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is leading the discussions, but at the Harvard campaign manager's conference last week, he declined to comment. "We're still working it out," he said.
1. The Future of the Democratic National Committee
Clearly, the DNC did not compete with the Obama campaign for resources, and the creation of a nationwide clean voter database with a single interface was a major step toward its evolution as a modern party. But now that the DNC has the data, and now that the party has the infrastructure, does the DNC need a change of mission? Right now, the DNC and an Obama team of political forensic examiners are conducting a ship to stern review of the party and its 2008 operations.
If the DNC turns into a advocacy group for Obama, then it will probably have to have custody of Obama's 13 million person list. Alternatively, if the Obama team turns the DNC into a nationwide campaign organization based on the OFA grassroots model, it might not need Obama's list -- although organizing would be much more efficient if the list was shared with the rest of the party.
Another model is to turn the DNC into the central campaign committee; instead of organizing political campaigns through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the DNC would assume many of the central functions of those committees, including, and especially, field.
Of course, Obama's team could decide to create a hybrid DNC, with an arm dedicated to the promotion of Obama's agenda, an arm that works to build the party's grassroots capacity, and and a arm with responsibility for coordinating the 2010 elections.
2. The list
The list is really shorthand for several capabilities, the first of which is the cadre of volunteer and professional organizers who form the core of Obama's campaign field capacity. The legal status of this organization will guide what it does and how other groups react to it. If it's a 501 (c) 4, other similarly organized interest groups worry that donors who want to curry favor with the Obama organization will bundle contributions to the (c) 4 and will forget about everyone else. If Obama's organizers form the caravan for social change, than the existing progressive infastructure in Washington will find themselves strapped for cash and resources. How does Obama's team avoid crowding out the private issue entrepreneurs and interest groups? Or -- is the purpose of an Obama 501(c) 4 precisely that -- to centralize power and take it away from these groups?
Of course, some of this fretting is overdone. MoveOn was able to grow its membership list by 2.5 million in seven months; there will always be room in the party for watchdog progressives who challenge the establishment, and Obama is the establishment. Whatever OFA 2.0 and the DNC become, they won't become the Center for American Progress, which will remain a center for policy generation and analysis, as well as a one-stop booking shop for Democratic communicators.
There may be consolidation, but there will always be a robust Democratic establishment.
3. Who makes decisions?
Early in the transition, there was a debate about whether to keep
the White House office of political affairs in place. The debate was settled
quickly and Patrick Gaspard will be the White House Political
Director. Nominally, the office makes sure that the president's
political flank is protected when he meets people or visits with
politicians; OPA deputies and associate directors have been the grandest of care-and-feeders, making sure that
visiting local official "A," who played a major role in, say, the Obama
campaign's Lake County, Indiana operation, gets White House tours.
The power associated with that position has ebbed and flowed; sometimes, it is the single most important office in the party, responsible for recruiting candidates, overseeing the national party committees, even (when legally appropriate) approving advertising scripts.
Gaspard and his team, who will report to senior adviser David Axelrod, will take the reigns of a strong political office, not a weak one. The DNC, the DSCC and the DCCC will play a role in candidate recruitment, but the White House will have first and final say.
One outstanding question is whether the chairman of the DNC is a functionary or a major power center. Obama is said to favor a model wherein the party's chief executive officer runs the show, leaving the chairperson to serve as the party's chief spokesperson and fundraiser.
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