Mark Casey Online » Obama

How to Transition from Successful Campaign to Successful Presidency

Mark Casey — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:03:31 +0000

The Obama campaign is now famous for its success with everything from fundraising (they raised half a billion dollars during the campaign) to organization — which outpaced the GOP’s famous three-day plan. Much of that success was predicated on bottom-up strategy influence, grassroots organization and personal committments.

But how do you transfer that unprecedented success to an even more important job — running (and, more specifically transitioning to running) the entire country?

I dunno — ask the organizers. And that’s exactly what the Obama campaign is doing. Making sure no one is left out, the transition team has organized five full days of conference calls with its top field organizers to help brainstorm strategies and tactics for “where to go from here.”

Talk about putting your mouth where your money is. Here’s part of the email sent to organizers:

YOU are the reason we have and will continue to change the world.

As a part of the transition process, we are completing a thorough analysis of the campaign and are seeking your input on where we should go from here. In order to do this, we are setting up a series of one hour conference calls starting this Friday, November 21^st through Tuesday, November 25^th.

I know a field organizer, and he is very enthusiastic about this move. It’s not just because he gets to kinda-sorta help influence parts of the president’s strategy (maybe). It’s that the field organizers were always the closest to the peple, to the American public — and they know what the public wants from the president, and how the president can frame his discussion for them.

Once again, the Obama team is showing its organizational prowess by doing something unique — listening to the organization.

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The GOP’s Tea Parties Represent…

Mark Casey — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:55:04 +0000

As a freelance writer, it’s hard to think of someone who hates Tax Day (read: today!) more than I do. Even though I’m morally, politically, and generally in favor of paying taxes, and even though I’d gladly pay more taxes than I am currently, it’s still a terrible day full of headaches and animosity about the day I’ll probably be audited just because I’m a business owner who writes things like video games off as tax deductions (That’s a legitimate write off for me, by the way).

But this teabagging/tea party thing just doesn’t make sense to me. We have a brand new president who has set in motion a whole raft of policy changes and programs that are worthy of protest, if you disagree, but why are taxes suddenly the problem? Obama reduced taxes, so they can’t protest high taxes — are these people are just now realizing that they pay them annually?

I know, I know, the answer is “they’re just complaining about Obama in whatever way they can” — but that’s the whole problem. Until the American right-wing becomes more serious about itself (and what it stands for), they’re going to be the butt of teabagging jokes for a long time to come. Visit www.AndrewSullivan.com today for a play-by-play of “WTF?”

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That Wiley Stock Market

Mark Casey — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:31:55 +0000

A row of houses in foreclosure

We just had the biggest two-day rally in over 20 years, coming on the heels of the recent prolonged crash from mid-september onward. Analysts are giving credit to Barack Obama and the announcement today (and Friday) of his economic team. Combine that with Citi’s personal rescue plan, and you’ve got people apparently willing to invest once again. At least for a couple of days.

This, from CNN:

“There is a massive amount of liquidity on the sidelines but it’s sitting behind a dam of fear,” said Stephen Leeb, president at Leeb Capital Management.

He said that there needs to be a major catalyst to really start it flowing, but Monday’s news had certainly caused some cracks in the dam. In particular, the nomination of Timothy Geithner for secretary of the Treasury was helping Wall Street.

Am I the only one at least marginally concerned that our entire financial system behaves like a petulant child, with all its whims and overreactions and fits?

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Obama’s “Closing Argument” Speech

Mark Casey — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:14:04 +0000

Billing today’s big speech as a “closing argument” doesn’t seem like the wisest idea to me when McCain’s latest attacks focus on arrogance and presumptuousness. But, it’s also an effective theme for the final week.

Neato bit:

The question in this election is not “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” We know the answer to that. The real question is, “Will this country be better off four years from now?”

Marc Ambinder has a full transcript.

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Andrew Sullivan’s Liveblog

Mark Casey — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:50:02 +0000

Sullivan recorded a good play-by-play, and reached this conclusion about debating, history, and Britishness:

This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I’ve watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don’t really see how the McCain campaign survives this.

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Markos’ Immediate Debate Reaction

Mark Casey — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:05:21 +0000

Snap polls, punditry, media gobsmacking and bloviation from myself and my peers are well on the way, but first to come down the line was Markos over at Daily Kos, and here’s the money quote:

There’s no doubt what the public will think. Anyone watching CNN on a hi-def TV could see the dial focus group of a bunch of Ohio undecided voters. And throughout the night, it often seemed that Obama would break the darn meter, his ratings going through the roof. McCain, on the other hand, was the king of the flatline. I swear, you could see the downticks every time McCain said “my friends” — a tell to the audience that he was about to serve another heaping dish of b.s. It was painful. According to the Republican pre-debate spin, McCain was supposed to use “humor” to soften the blow of his mighty attacks, but 1) did any of his attacks connect? and 2) can anyone say, in all seriousness, that McCain delivered a single effective laugh line?

And here’s what struck me: Why in the world did McCain get so damn close to the questioners, at times awkwardly poking at them with his paws while he used a sappy sweet “happy man” voice? At times, he stepped up so close, the camera couldn’t even get an angle on him and we had to watch him nearly from behind.

Shoulda done a green screen.

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Palin Accidentally Agrees with Obama, McCain Plugs Ears

Mark Casey — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:20:28 +0000

Should we cross the border from Afghanistan and run anti-terror missions in Pakistan, where Bin Laden lives?

It’s a fair question, and a delicate foreign policy area. Barack Obama said he would in a debate many months ago, and McCain called him out on it during Friday night’s debate. So a kid asks Palin about it in a cheesesteak hut, and she says Obama’s right.

Today, McCain gets angry, cancels his town hall meeting, and yells at George Stephanopoulos about it. Pretty funny.

Click here for video.

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Obama vs. McCain Debate Reaction

Mark Casey — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:29:15 +0000

You can turn to any corner of the internet — and I mean any corner — and read pages upon pages of post-debate reaction. Who won, who lost, who looked more presidential — these are all important things to consider.

But my reaction? YAAAWWN!

I never would’ve thought I’d be longing for the days of Bush vs. Kerry, but here I am today, almost putting myself to sleep trying to write about last night’s debate. Don’t get me wrong — I like substance, and substance is kind of what we got. But whether it was McCain somehow still tripping over endless regurgitations from his stump speech (”I’ll veto spending and be famous!”), or Obama taking way too much of his own time responding to McCain’s consistent attacks, I can only think of one word to sum up the debate: repetitive.

Obama’s strengths: Civility, bipartisanship, calm.
Obama’s weaknesses: Being baited into responding to McCain’s attacks, not spending enough time on his own plans
McCain’s strengths: Staying on-message, attacking Obama with every single answer
McCain’s weaknesses: He appeared contemptuous, angry, old and bitter. He was highly partisan.

According to post-debate polls, people are just loving Obama. I don’t totally get it, but I approve of it. I think he did, in fact, have the better debate. His answers were more appealing to everyday folks, and he had more specifics about his plans. McCain only seemed to offer specifics about Obama, and hardly any about himself.

McCain repeatedly interrupted Obama and the moderator, PBS’ Jim Lehrer, often raising his voice and speaking over them until they gave up, which could take up to 30 seconds of crosstalk, just like on Bill O’Reilly’s godforsaken show. This was one of the more annoying traits I’ve seen in a debater.

Other than that, next time bring out the fireworks, boys! Try to convince us that you have at least some passion for the job. (Note: McCain getting angry about Obama’s record does not count. Negativity doesn’t win debates, and the Independents polled proved that.)

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High Water Mark: Obama Breaches 50% in Tracking Polls

Mark Casey — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:44:49 +0000

For quite some time, pollsters have been suggesting that the 3-5% lead Barack Obama has been holding above John McCain in the Gallup and Rasmussen daily polls is tenuous, because neither candidate has polled above 50%, and thus neither have acheived a simple majority among voters polled.

Until today:

Any kind of polls should be taken with a massive grain of salt, and especially daily tracking polls. But this isn’t just the highest Obama has polled yet in 2008 — as I said, he’s broken the 50% barrier, which is perhaps the only statistically significant milestone someone can reach in a head-to-head poll. McCain, for his part, exhibits a more telling story with his ratings, as he hasn’t been able to poll above 45%.

Here are the hard numbers:

Gallup:
Obama – 50%
McCain – 42%

Rasmussen:
Obama – 51%
McCain – 45%

Undecideds are apparently the X-factor, as Obama is gaining support from their category while McCain is holding strong at around 42%. I’m not sure if this is pure convention bounce, or if dissatisfaction with McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his VP is pushing undecideds into the Obama column. It seems to me that the latter is more likely. We’ll see if it lasts or if Obama falls back down.

Convention bounces don’t often last — but unpopular VP choices last forever.

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Biden Video Clips Galore

Mark Casey — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:04:28 +0000

Nothing’s going to predict the future better than the past, as I’m sure some famous guy said at some point. So, with that in mind, here’s a good bit from the Daily Show:

And regarding LOTS more great video, nyceve over at Daily Kos has done better than I ever would at finding some juicy Biden moments, so head over there and enjoy the clips.

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