Democratic politics 2.0

While it seems to be in its nascent stages, the Obama campaign apparently intends to use its vast volunteer operation and email lists to create a political organization intended not to be used for 2012, but rather to help achieve Obama's agenda. Called Barack Obama 2.0, it may have its greatest effect in congressional districts where Democratic congressmen may feel vulnerable to the Right.

As Kevin Drum notes, this fundamentally changes the game.

This is something that Mark Kleiman more or less predicted many months ago. (To me, anyway. I'm not sure if he blogged about it.) His conjecture was that Obama's organization had fundamentally redefined presidential politics thanks to its huge pool of dedicated volunteers and its ability to quickly raise unheard-of sums of money. After all, what congressman is likely to buck the boss if the boss can offer — or withhold — hundreds of thousands of dollars without batting an eye and mobilize — or withhold — hundreds of thousands of phone calls and telegrams depending on how closely you toe the presidential line? Every president has a certain amount of power he can bring to bear against holdout legislators, but Obama's organization brings this to a whole new level.

UPDATE: It's interesting -- and typically liberal Democratic -- how many of Kevin's commenters finds this "sinister." Their objections seem to fall in two areas: 1.) That this is somehow a precursor to fascism; that those nice "Change" t-shirts will change to brown shirts in short order. Or, 2.) That it is unseemly for the Obama campaign to continue to send emails to supporters (current or former) that include a "Donate" button, especially since he's committed a number of crimes against the heterodoxy, such as having Rick Warren say some prayer next week. What they seem to forget is that the 2008 election shifted the nation to the left, and that it would be foolish to assume that this is a permanent occurence. Many Democrats won seats in districts that typically vote Republican. Pressure on them to move to the Right on things like climate change, the stimulus package, intelligent defense spending, etc., will be enormous. This shouldn't be seen as a threat to them from an all-powerful and greedy chief executive, but rather as an opportunity for those vulnerable Democrats to be able to tap into an enormous organization they could never dream of putting together themselves.

I guess the critics think that MoveOn represents democracy while B.O. 2.0 represents Welcoming Our New Overlord.