[COMM-ORG] "Shifting Gears: Transforming Obama's Campaign Into a Movement for Change"

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed:  COMM-ORG did not receive the deluge of this message, so I am just 
forwarding the second message that we did receive.]

From: "Peter Dreier" <dreier at oxy.edu>


Friends and Colleagues:
 
Due to some computer glitch (which surely was hatched by the McCain 
campaign), a number of people got multiple (and by that I mean 10-20) 
copies of the email I sent last night with my latest HuffingtonPost 
piece, "Shifting Gears:  Transforming Obama's Campaign Into a Movement 
for Change" 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/shifting-gears-transformi_b_141975.html 
).   I'm looking into the problem and I apologize for the deluge of 
email messages.  If you get multiple copies of THIS message, let me 
know. That means that the problem still exists.
 
For those of you who didn't receive the first email at all, here's the 
message:
 
Barack Obama is going to need all his organizing skills to be an 
effective leader.  As I write in an article in the Huffington Post, 
"Shifting Gears:  Transforming Obama's Campaign Into a Movement for 
Change" ( 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/shifting-gears-transformi_b_141975.html 
), to achieve a progressive agenda, Obama will have to win over some 
reluctant Democrats and a few moderate Republicans. Like Franklin 
Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, Obama can use his bully pulpit to inspire 
and educate Americans to help move the country in a new direction. But 
like those two transformational presidents, Obama will also need to get 
the ground troops mobilized, in key states and Congressional districts, 
to put pressure on members who might otherwise sit on the fence. Are the 
progressive and liberal organizations and constitutencies up to the 
challenge? What lessons can they learn from the success of FDR's New 
Deal coalition,  the Reagan-to-Bush conservative coalition that gained 
influence and power starting in the 1970s,  and the Clinton 
adminstration's tepid efforts to move the country in a new direction?
 
Peter Dreier
 
----------------------------------------
Peter Dreier
E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics
Director, Urban & Environmental Policy Program
Occidental College
1600 Campus Road
Los Angeles, CA 90041
Phone: (323) 259-2913
Email: dreier at oxy.edu
Webpage: http://employees.oxy.edu/dreier
 
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great 
moral crises maintain their neutrality" -- Dante