Obama campaign seeks input on future, whatever that may be
(CNN) - While the election may be over, don't expect an end to the campaign emails–the latest of which hailed from President Barack Obama's re-election team Sunday evening.
The email asked for feedback from supporters about the president's campaign and signaled the organization may stick around for future use as a policy advocate tool under Obama's second term, or even further down the road as a blueprint for national Democratic candidates.
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Written by campaign manager Jim Messina, the email points supporters and activists to an online survey that asks basic database questions–such as age, gender, address, etc–as well as 30 detailed questions about supporters' experiences working with the campaign.
It further solicits input for future prospects for the group, which built unprecedented access to information about voters and had an aggressive push to make contact with them through phone calls and door knocks. At the end of the campaign, Obama's team said they had reached 125 million potential voters using their system of personalized contacts.
"Your hard work and passion defined this campaign and re-elected President Obama," the survey states. "Now, we're counting on you to help take this organization forward as we continue our work beyond 2012."
Messina and the deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, did not respond to requests for comments about the questionnaire and the organization's future.
After the 2008 election, Obama's campaign lived as Organizing for America, a wing of the Democratic National Committee. The group, however, faced some criticism for lack of focus and leadership as Obama's White House staff–many of who came from the campaign–centered on governing and addressing the worst of the recession. Some argued the group and its resources could have been better used to push the president's agenda.
Among the new survey's questions, supporters are asked how they got involved with the campaign and what kind of work they would like to do down the road. Activists are even asked if they're interested in running for office.
Following re-election, the president wasted no time taking advantage of the organization's massive base. Obama spoke to 30,000 supporters on a conference call last Tuesday about the fiscal cliff, rallying the troops as he began negotiations with congressional leaders to find a deficit-reduction package.
"Our work can't stop now," he said, according to audio of the call. "We're going to need you guys to stay active. We need you to stick with us and stay on this and I'm pledging to do a better job even than we did in the first term in making sure you guys stay involved, that you guys know exactly what we're doing, that we're giving you guys clear directions and talking points in terms of how we keep mobilizing across the country."
Also on the call was OFA's Battleground State Director Mitch Stewart, who, along with Deputy Director Jeremy Bird, did not return requests for comment about the call.
However, on a conference call with reporters two days after the election, top campaign advisers said they had plans to talk to supporters before taking any steps forward with the Obama campaign machine.
"We're going to go through a process with our supporters, and have conversations with them about what they want to do next," Messina said. "We've always listened to the ground."
David Plouffe, the White House senior adviser who led Obama's 2008 campaign, echoed those remarks, saying "you can't just transfer" the Obama campaign machine to another candidate.
"People are not going to spend hours away from their families and their jobs, contributing financially when it's hard from them to do it, unless the believe in the candidate," he said.
- CNN’s Ashley Killough, Kevin Liptak, Kevin Bohn, and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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Was there someone that complained about Obama taking a vacation? Did you know, that our last president, GWB, spent 32% of his presidency on vacation?! that's 1,020 days and cost the tax payers over 20 MILLION dollars to get him around that whole time? Obama spent less time on vacation that all the republicans from the past 50 years or so. Add that to your deficit.
@maf- "@ just askin @ Chris nothing better to do today? Try something constructive!! Good effective discourse and an exchange of NEW ideas would be fantastic. Fanatical harping is just not productive."
I'm busy – only took time for a stupid comment about "gifts" – post should have said "GOP" needs to do this instead of "Obama"
We need high-end tax rates (top 2 brackets) kept at Clinton levels at least until we pay down the two Cheney/Bush wars. Repubs need to concentrate on helping the nation instead of pandering votes while their main goal is to concentrate wealth to 'rich' contributors/connected contractors – the $1B "investment" to electing Mitt would have had a $60B payoff – that's a 6200% ROI per year on a one-time bet of $1B – they almost won.
Two important GOP issues – What is McConnell' #1 goal now that Mitt lost? (maybe keeping his job after 2014?) and what will happen to/who will 'lead' the Tea Parties? (will they split? will Rove be willing to jettison/risk losing their votes). It all comes down to doing what is best for the country, and being able to back it up with numbers/facts instead of evading calls for policy details (and Obama was right – had Mitt given details, voters wouldn't like it because analysts would have shredded his bullet points)..
I was hoping Obama got re-elected so that he would have to solve the massive fiscal disaster he created in his first 4 years.
Now we have the Perfect Obama/Democrat Fiscal Disaster swirling,
.Obama tax cuts for the rich (and everybody else)expiring and going up,
..gimmick payroll tax holiday rates expiring and going up,
...20 new Obamacare taxes starting up,
....a trillion dollar yearly deficit as far as the eye can see,
.....debt ceiling being reached again,
......massive unemployment,
.......stagnant economic growth,
........no spending cuts,
.........calls for increased spending, oops I mean investment.
Yes, hold on people! Time to pay the piper for the first four years of Obama!! Obama and the Democrats have sure lead us to a wonderful place now haven't they.
LOL,,,LOL,,, How funny people are. They still can't cope with their failure and complete ignorance to who the people are in this great country. They actually believe we're still in the Leave It To Beaver age. So funny, Because of how they tryed to destroy the POTUS for everything & anything possible they found out it could not be done. Nor could the U.S. be bought off by Wallstreet. The funnist thing is that the Republican will not see the W/H for probally 25 to 30 years if that. People don't forget who did what to them and why they did what they did. The memorys of this past recession and this president and his re-election will live on for may, many years to come. And this President will always be in the news for his vision and direction for this country. History has began to re-wright the New World Order and President Obama is the main man who changed not only this country but the world as a whole for Human Rights and Civility.
Well,
Believe it or not, the Conservatives and Republician's believe you have enough canones to take care of yourself. The Liberal's and Democrats think you are too ignorant to take care of yourself So, they are now asking the igoranimouses to advise them? Well good luck on that. It is well known that Igorance Abounds thruout the land. If Obama has his was you will soon bite the hand that feeds you.
I dont believe it, what experts have you seen stating that raising taxes on the rich kills jobs, the EXACT OPPOSITE has been statistically proven, your a good little republican, now go get your denial fix for the day, hour of fox news should do the trick.
Tax the rich , that is the only plan he has and that is what people liked to hear during his campaign.
Well , it won't do a darn thing to solve the problems at hand.
You once again elected a President who is absolutely clueless when it comes to the economy and creating jobs.
His second term will eventually expose his incompetence and the hoax he is.
I believe this Obama campaign should live and alive to sustain its agenda upto the end and to keep the legacy of Obama to favour the middle class and American poor. I feel the questionair and reflected this reality very clearly. No more the GOP's administration in this country.
Funny to hear some1 call George Soros a proponent for the New World Order! That's excactly what I've been suspecting about Romney & the GOT-Party! In all actuallity it's just another silly conspiracy theory! Does any1 truly believe that Americans will sit idly by while some unseen, unheard, vast world conspiracy takes over our country!? That would be when the well armed citizen militia, a blogger mentioned, comes into play! Right now our concern is to get our nation on its feet & squabbles do nothing but waste time, no matter what administration is in the White House!!
Thank-you President-ELECT Barack "Who's Sane" Obama for the GIFT you gave this election cycle, the gift of HOPE.
@IDON'TBELIEVEIT – So you are in favor of returning to Bush style economics? Try watching a YouTube video called "Super Rich The Greed Game". It is not an American made video. It is from the BBC and shows you what Bush era economics did to ruin the world economy. It even has extremely wealthy people from Britain saying the profits were vulgar and that paying less taxes than their maids was reprehensible. Nobody is falling for the old lines any more. We all know how it got this way and Obama is opposing a return to disaster while trying to mitigate how it came to this.
@Rudy NYC
Invest in education, particularly medical education. The ACA is going to create an increased demand for doctors and trained medical personnel. Medicine could become our next econmic shot in the arm, and those jobs cannot be exported.
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What possible incentive could there be for someone to put forth the decade of study to become a doctor? The answer: None, once you take away the ability for them to make significant income doing it. That is going to be another side affect of obamacare, a shortage of doctors, with care suffering accordingly.
Alot of right wing madness, their debt, their leadership got us there, now let our leadership get us out, by doing exactly what got us in this mess, mikey is right, when little timmy gets mercury poisening, the answer is not more mercury, wake up, our economy has turned around and you act like its a bad thing, do you really think more trickle down economics will work? of course not, your welcome to drink more mercury, but the rest of us want to get better
@Toomy_G I believe Obama has not been President for four years yet. His 2nd term begins at the swearing in, in January. Sadly for many Republicans this means that there is a chance he can come to a compromise on the "fiscal cliff" before the actual end of his 1st term. There are almost 60 days left. Also we used to swear new Presidents into office in March.
untill the republican party gets a grip on their ignorance when it comes to the electorit they will have no relevence. The campaign is over get on with it. weed out the crazies in your party. The voices of limbaugh and coulter should not be what the republican party is about. Take a look at the country for gosh sakes. We didn't vote for you because your ideas stink you will not compromise ,you live in the 1950's and you have no compassion for gays, women or minority groups. You nominate people that are morons like palin and mitt , mccain,perry bachman. Stop looking for conspiracys in everything. The virginia repo chair person now says the president is brain washing people! Grow up get a backbone and get rid of the nut jobs or no one will tqke the republican party seriously again. we have seen and heard enough.
Just like after the 2008 election - the next morning the campaign cranked right back up for 2012, and as soon as the President got inaugurated, that pair of Air Force One 747's, at a million dollars a trip, became "Campaign One". I honestly would have no trouble with that, and love getting new blood into running our country, except that running the government took a far distant second place to winning a second term.
The one good thing that comes out of this is keeping a bunch of particularly our youth fired up about government. The bad thing is that we have proven that one doesn't have to do anything and even gross mistakes will be forgiven as long as the campaign is cool and effective enough. Oh, and the candidates have to be Rock Stars.
Quit spending my great grandchildren's money.
Taxing the rich will not solve the revenue problem, of course not, but it will take a huge chunk out of it. no one said that alone will work, only that taxing the rich has NOT been proven to kill jobs, the opposite is true, you guys just dont get it, you cant make us believe your bs, just because you do. get real, mitt would be a disaster of epic proportions