Keeping Hope Alive: The Story of Obama’s Neighborhood Teams Following Election Day

by New Organizing Institute

By Tyler Rodgers, December 16, 2009

Last summer, when I received a job offer to be a field organizer with Barack Obama's campaign in the battleground state of Ohio, I knew I couldn't turn down a tremendous opportunity to help elect the one living politician I was most inspired by. As I drove out to Ohio, I was aware that I would be heavily involved in securing Barack Obama's victory in the November election. Little did I know that I would be helping to form relationships that would endure well past November 4th and be used to fundamentally change the communities I had worked in.

As part of the Obama campaign's field plan, paid field organizers were responsible for recruiting and training a handful of volunteer neighborhood team leaders, NTLs for short, who were each organizer's point person in the neighborhoods they were organizing. Some neighborhood team leaders were so ubiquitous that many volunteers had relationships with their NTLs, but not with their field organizer. Not only was this strategy an incredibly effective way to win the presidential election, but it was also an effective way to leave an infrastructure in place beyond November 4th that could continue advocating for Barack Obama's agenda. The Obama team was cognizant of this fact, and is currently working to capitalize on the bedrock that was laid during the campaign: Obama for America has become Organizing for America (OFA), a wing of the DNC that is advocating for the president’s policies at the grassroots level.

The fact that these neighborhood teams became as cohesive and productive as they did is thanks in no small part to the organizational structures that each team shared. While the internal structures of each neighborhood team fell into place organically and left each team looking slightly different than its counterpart, field organizers were tasked with organizing their teams in the same way from the start and adjusted accordingly only when it became clear that certain teams in practice must be arranged different than the original model. And despite minor differences in internal structure, every team had the same chain of command when it was time to translate the goals of the national campaign into local, grassroots efforts: NTLs took their marching orders from their field organizers and disseminated this information to the rest of their neighborhood team. Through this shared structure, neighborhood teams were imbued with a sense of purpose that most likely would not have existed without their direction from the campaign. What follows is the story of three neighborhood teams and their continued existence in the absence of shared structure.

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In the immediate aftermath of the campaign, NTL Libby Rupp was spent. She had been volunteering for the Obama campaign in her town of Mason, Ohio for months, devoting between 10 and 20 hours a week to her NTL duties while balancing her responsibilities as a wife, a mother of three, and a full-time member of the administrative team at the Cincinnati Waldorf School. Never in her wildest dreams did Libby foresee that by the start of the new year, she would be the co-leader of a volunteer organization that is currently running 3 or 4 service projects per month.

In the final five days before the election, Libby’s neighborhood team was joined with the neighborhood team just south, in Deerfield Township, led by retired teacher Georgette Marlow. During this time, the two neighborhood teams became one, and volunteers from each team came together and formed bonds that would last until after the election, though no one knew this at the time. Although Georgette was excited by the energy in her home following her first house meeting and had mentioned to me she would like to continue organizing after November 4th, that conversation was in September, and after all of the time the campaign had asked her to invest in October and November it seemed that any notions of continuing to organize may have been the type of rhetoric sometimes spoken by politicians themselves: off-hand promises resulting from pure campaign adrenaline. Following election day, as the euphoria was setting in, the adrenaline had worn off.

"We were kind of tired after the election," Georgette told me. "We hadn't thought a whole lot about how we were going to go forward or if we were going to go forward. We were just tired." Like Libby, Georgette was in desperate need of some rest.

But Libby and Georgette’s team of faithful and tireless volunteers began looking for long-term direction as early as November 5th. "We began getting calls from people the next day, the day after the election," Georgette explained. "People from Mason and Deerfield were calling and saying 'I can't believe this is over, isn't there something else we can do?'"

Thus even before Organizing for America sent out its first post-election request of its neighborhood volunteer teams, Libby and Georgette had decided to get their group together, perhaps for a holiday party, to discuss ways to move forward. While their get together was in the planning stages, they received a message from me, informing them that President-Elect Obama wanted them to hold a "Change is Coming" house meeting to build support for the agenda he would be fighting for once sworn in. Believing that the objectives of the house party were in line with the objectives that the volunteers of Mason and Deerfield sought for their community, they went forward with the meeting.

Around this time, the President-Elect called on Americans to serve in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service on January 19th, the day prior to his historic inauguration. This provided the perfect opportunity for Libby, Georgette, and their slew of volunteers who were eager to revive the sense of community and civic engagement they had been a part of during the election campaign. Georgette set out to find a service project that would satisfy their group's objective of improving the economy, health care, and education in the Mason and Deerfield neighborhoods. When the group, at this time tentatively named Yes We Can Do More, held another house meeting, Georgette proposed a partnership with the Interfaith Hospitality

Libby and Georgette at a Hope in Action Service Project

Network. In her eyes, working with the IHN would be perfect for the group. According to her, the IHN is "a nationwide network that doesn't just house and feed homeless people, but it also gives them skills to re-enter the workforce." Once they had decided on their project, the volunteers of Yes We Can Do More went to work preparing for their first group activity since the end of the campaign.

* * *

Long before November 4th, Liberty Township’s NTL, Julie Robinson, knew she wanted to be involved advancing Barack Obama's agenda if he was elected. It was Obama's own words that lit a spark within Julie to stay active, despite the fact that she had never been heavily invested in any other presidential campaign. Obama the candidate was constantly telling his overflowing crowds that if he was elected, the work of the volunteers who had worked tirelessly for him during the election was just starting, and these words resonated with Julie.

Much like in Mason and Deerfield, Julie began receiving all sorts of correspondence from her volunteers after the election. Many asked what Julie, other volunteers, and the organizing staff were up to. Some expressed their interest to keep organizing. Initially, Julie and the rest of the team would meet for drinks and appetizers, existing more as a social network than a political or service organization. But when President-Elect Obama sent out the e-mail asking Julie to hold a Change is Coming house meeting, she was more than happy to oblige him.

While the campaign wanted these meetings to be held on the weekend, Julie held hers on a Monday night. What she saw was breathtaking. "There were 53 people in my living room on a Monday night two weeks before Christmas," she

Julie Robinson and President Obama

explained. "Very passionate. We decided from that moment on that this was something. From all these e-mails and phone calls I was getting, we have to do something here." It was now clear that enough enthusiasm existed to form some sort of permanent institution, which at this time Julie simply thought would be a volunteer group. As Julie said, "I had no idea we were going to form a Political Action Committee."

* * *

Meanwhile, west of Julie Robinson's neighborhood, Obama NTL and Miami University professor Don Daiker was contemplating how to move forward in Butler County's liberal enclave surrounding the university. "Once the election came we were free to move forward and a lot of us wanted to continue the momentum," Don said. "We didn't want to give up, we felt that the Obama election was not the final stage but an early stage in electoral politics." While celebrating on election night, Don and his volunteers wondered where to go from there. They decided to continue celebrating their hard work, and shortly thereafter began planning a party for the evening of Barack Obama's inauguration day.

* * *

As Libby, Georgette, and some of their most dedicated volunteers geared up for their service event on January 19th, they were facing a tough decision. Following the initial house meeting, there were some volunteers who had expressed their dismay about the fact that the Organizing for America website had the DNC logo

prominently displayed. As Libby put it, "We have quite a few members of our group who are not Democrats, do not identify with the Democratic Party, and have no desire to. And we have several who are former Republicans, and they're not interested in that. And if we are a group that is identified with the Democratic Party either locally or nationally, they don't want to be part of it. So in order to keep these people and to keep their excitement going, we really had to drop that." For the time being, the group decided it was best to stay above the political fray. As a result of the group's inclusiveness, over 75 volunteers showed up at IHN to clean, paint and organize a new day center and fix up an existing facility on the day of national service.

In the wake of the group's first big service project, its leaders knew they would need to decide how to move forward in the long run. Cynthia Herman, a volunteer in charge of outreach, was receiving calls from various service organizations asking the group for help from its extensive volunteer base. The first question they asked her was if the group she represented was affiliated with any political organization. Acting on these concerns, and the concerns of various members, Georgette and Libby had a meeting with Cynthia Herman and one other experienced volunteer, Allyson Pryor. As a tireless advocate during the Obama campaign and someone who had prior campaign experience (albeit for Republicans), Allyson's voice was valued immensely by Georgette and Libby. Allyson's pragmatism led her to believe that the most effective way to accomplish the goals of their volunteer organization was to remain non-partisan. Georgette explained, "We decided that we still wanted to advocate for the issues that were important to President Obama but we could best do that by advocating through our service." It's certainly not hard to understand why this committee decided they could have the biggest impact by staying non-partisan and working to solve problems that bridge the political spectrum: In the 2008 election, Barack Obama won just 31% of the vote in their county.

Not wanting to alienate potential new members of a different political persuasion, the four decided they would need a new name for their volunteer organization. At the same time, they wanted to some way reference the man who had inspired them to serve in the first place. Libby came up with Hope In Action, a name that would tie the concrete actions of the service group with the loftier, more abstract "hope" spoken of during President Obama's candidacy. At the same time, it was a name that was not aggressively partisan.

* * *

Meanwhile, in nearby Butler County, Julie Robinson's team of volunteers was taking an entirely different approach. At the second house meeting she held, Julie Robinson and two other volunteers started discussing the type of organization they would like to have as time progressed. "We can do all these great things, all these service projects," Julie said. "But if we can't get involved in Democratic politics within Butler County, we're never going to make a difference." At the suggestion of one of her volunteers, Julie started looking into what political action committees are and what they do. Due to the Obama campaign's strict refusal to take money from PACs, Julie was worried about disassociating her group from the one politician who had inspired her to be politically involved. Despite some initial concern over forming a PAC, Julie and her most active volunteers were eventually won over by the idea of raising money for local candidates and (admittedly lofty) visions of helping to one day topple their Congressman, House Minority Leader John Boehner. This is not to say that their group, which decided on the name Change Butler PAC, will not be partaking in service activities. In addition to their political wing, the Change Butler PAC also has a legislative wing, a fund-raising wing, and a service wing.

* * *

Don Daiker's group of volunteers thinking along the same lines. Following President Obama's swearing-in ceremony, Barack Obama volunteers from Oxford City and Oxford Township gathered at the Miami Inn Tavern to celebrate their new president. After their well-attended event, the planners of the party decided the way to move forward was by establishing a PAC. They discussed what the goals of their organization should be, and found that their interests lay mainly in electoral politics. As Don revealed, "We thought to ourselves if we want to work on hunger or food banks or recycling we can do that through other organizations. We wanted an organization that's primarily political and that's primarily involved with elections." After having one of the group's volunteers look into how to start a PAC, Don and his team subsequently registered the Butler County Progressive PAC with the state of Ohio.

The group's main goal is to "find, recruit, locate, and help a very limited number of candidates," and they will

be deciding at their next meeting which major issues to advocate for. In these early stages, the question of which candidates the PAC will be supporting is unresolved. Though the PAC may end up helping Governor Strickland or other statewide candidates, there is also an immense interest in helping those who could make a difference much more locally, such as city council members, township trustees, and board of education members. This speaks to the local, grassroots nature of the neighborhood team program. It is also a harbinger of some of the challenges that await the team at Organizing for America.

* * *

As these volunteer groups have evolved largely without direction from Organizing for America, how will they respond when an OFA organizer gets in touch, asking them to advocate for the President's agenda? If Hope in Action, Change Butler, and Butler County Progressive are any indication, it will certainly be a challenge to get these groups on board with what Organizing for America asks of them. Some volunteers have also expressed reservation about the type of organizing that can occur during a more long-term effort that is not part of the intensity of a campaign. As Libby explained, "You can't be an Obama fan club, you really can't. Not where we live. It's one thing to be an Obama fan club during an election, that's what's expected. But after the election it has to be different." Despite these apprehensions, there is definitely still reason to be optimistic that in due time the Obama administration and Organizing for America can count on the fearless volunteers they deployed last year to secure an overwhelming electoral victory.

Notwithstanding the difficult decisions that this will surely entail after establishing Hope in Action as a non-partisan group, Georgette has not ruled out working with an OFA organizer. When asked about Hope in Action's relationship with an OFA organizer in the future, Georgette expressed optimism about a working relationship moving forward. "In no way, shape, or form do I want to disengage from OFA,” she noted. I think we need them and I think they need us. I would love to work with somebody." Yet Georgette's response also revealed the control that these indigenous groups have largely had since November and will likely want to maintain: "I don't think there will be any problem. I think it's just a matter of them understanding where we're coming from and how we really think we can do the best job here and them letting us know what they would like us to do, in our own way, for them.

It is certainly ironic that one of the biggest strength's of Barack Obama's campaign - the training and empowerment of local volunteers - may now present a complication as OFA seeks to move forward. Nowhere did this seem to be as much of a complication as with the Butler County Progressive PAC. Like the other organizations formed by Obama NTLs, it is still unclear what their relationship will be with an Obama organizer. Don Daiker believes the rapport will be amicable and congenial and certainly does not foresee any hostility. But the goals of Butler County Progressive PAC are strictly electoral, and ideally they will be channeling their resources towards local races. Due to this fact, Don foresees potential for the overall goals of Butler County Progressive and Organizing for America to diverge. As Don explained, "It may not be important to them, for example, to finally elect a progressive state legislator from this part of the county. So our goals are going to be more local than Organizing for America is."

Another complication is the fact that some of these volunteers have gone ahead and formed PACs. As mentioned above, Julie Robinson was skeptical about forming a PAC because of the way Obama the candidate ruled out receiving donations from political action committees. As OFA field staff are hired and hit the ground, it will be interesting to see how the relationship with volunteer-groups-turned-PACs will evolve. Yet Julie made clear, in no uncertain terms, her desire to once again work with an Obama organizer. "Make no mistake," she said. "Our original plan was to exist solely in support of Barack Obama's agenda. So whatever we can do to that end without messing things up legally we will do. I expect a lot of help from the organizer in Ohio. I've learned that Democrats can sometimes be their own worst enemy. So I'm hoping that the organizer or the field staff can keep us focused in regards to what's important."

* * *

In the wake of the Obama campaign, with organizers having gone from their turfs and the adrenaline that comes with a presidential race long since gone, various neighborhood team leaders have used the organizing skills they learned over the course of the campaign to continue working to strengthen the communities they live in. The great strength of these neighborhood teams during the campaign were how localized - and to a degree, autonomous - they were, coupled with a highly-regimented set of instructions from different levels of the paid campaign staff. Their autonomy has only been magnified by the campaign's conclusion, as many groups have made critical decisions with input coming solely from their members. One group has become a service organization, one group has become a PAC with political and service elements, one group has become a PAC with strictly electoral goals. Certainly, other neighborhood teams have evolved into groups with goals not shared by any of the teams featured in this story. None of these teams have stayed involved in the "right" way or the "wrong" way. It is a testament to the energy of these groups and the organizational success of the Obama field campaign that these teams have stayed involved at all. And for that, our country is an undeniably better place.