The announcement of Gov. Tim Kaine's annointment as part-time general chairman of the Democratic National Committee is obscuring the more consequential changes afoot for the party.
As has been previously reported, Jennifer O'Malley-Dillon will be executive director of the DNC. O'Malley-Dillon is seen by the team as a manager with an organizational background that appeals to Obama. She is large measure responsible for Sen. John Edwards's solid caucus performances in 2004 and 2008. She was recruited by Steve Hilderband to join Obama's campaign as battleground states director and spent the general election overseeing state field budgets and figuring out where to send the principals.
The DNC will retain traditional responsibilities, like planning the convention and political research. But it will significantly expand its campaign organizing capacity and probably its staff; think of it as current DNC chairman Howard Dean's 50 state strategy on steroids.
Here's what new:
Mitch Stewart, a veteran campaign organizer who oversaw Virginia during the general election for Obama, is poised to run the day-to-day operations of the next incarnation of the Obama campaign. (Before the New Year, this quasi-campaign organization was internally referred to as OFA 2.0; it has new, highly classified name.) Joining him will be Jeremy Bird, a critical cog in Obama's South Carolina primary victory and the director of his Ohio general election campaign. These appointments aren't set in stone, but they are likely, as both Stewart and Bird are working daily on the product.
It remains unclear, even to insiders, whether the Obama-branded organization will be a scaled down version of the campaign, whether it will be a project of the DNC, or whether it will become the external organizing / grassroots arm of the White House, pushing its health care, energy and economic priorities.
Stewart and Bird have been working on a post-morterm -- said to exceed 500 pages -- of what went right and what went wrong in each state's field operation. A book-length treatment was given to Obama to read over the holidays.
In two and a half years, the Obama post-campaign entity and the DNC will merge and shift to re-election mode. O'Malley-Dillon, Stewart and Bird would therefore be slated for top slots in the re-elect.
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