Remember Organizing for Action (OFA)? The grassroots army that made Senator Obama President Obama?
OFA recently relaunched to protect Progressive values from the new Republican governance. Though it worked wonders for President Obama’s political aspirations, top Democratic operatives claim it almost killed the Democratic party.
“This is some GRADE A Bullshit right here,” said Stephen Handwerk, Executive Director of the Louisiana Democratic Party.
Asawin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast reports:
“This is some GRADE A Bullshit right here,” Stephen Handwerk, executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party, wrote in a private Democratic-listserv email obtained by The Daily Beast. Handwerk was reacting to news of OFA’s post-election retooling, which was shared “without comment” to the group of state-level Dems by Crystal Kay Perkins, executive director for Texas Democrats.“It also to me seems TONE DEAF—we have lost over 1,000 seats in the past 8 years… all because of this crap,” Handwerk continued. “Let’s get through the next two weeks—but then we gotta figure this out and keep the pressure on. WOW.”Others on the thread shared these sentiments.“Yes, it sure is,” Katie Mae Simpson, executive director for the Maine Democratic Party, replied. “OFA showed up in Maine, organized a press conference on saving [Obamacare], with one of our Dem legislative leaders speaking, all without ever mentioning that they were in state and organizing. They hired someone I know, which is somewhat helpful, but my god, they don’t have a very good alliance-building process.”Such grievances, though expressed privately, are nothing new among state Democratic Party leadership.“[With] all due respect to President Obama, OFA was created as a shadow party because Obama operatives had no faith in state parties,” Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb told Politico last week.“I love and adore everything about President Obama except for OFA,” South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison (who is also running to chair the Democratic National Committee) said at a recent DNC “future forum,” according to The Washington Post.
“Tone deaf” is a good way to put it. Democrats are losing control of state houses across the country and OFA has siphoned support and resources away from the party infrastructure.
In the meantime:
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