[Welcome, OFA readers! (The OFA page has no links for individual comments that I can find, so I can't cite back to the link. Therefore, I've included a screen dump of the thread below. -- lambert]

There were quite a few Organizing for America (OFA) health care organizing "kickoff" meetings in my area today. I chose to go to the one listed as sponsored by a slew of "your-organization-here for Obama" groups in order to do some outreach.

Sure enough, everyone (about 10 people) there except me and another single payer activist was a veteran of the Obama campaign. All or them were in their twenties except one, who I will call Wiser Head, who seemed to be in his thirties. We on the other hand are old, gray, and distinctly unfashionable. My co-activist managed to stir up a fair amount of trouble, deploying a total lack of tact to fine effect. I seconded as best I could.

The purpose of the meeting was to sign people up to do canvassing and the like on a National Day of Action on June 27th, the goal being to "push the President's message" on health care reform. Well, we were also supposed to watch some videos of Obama speaking, but no one wanted to, so we skipped it. (Thank FSM! I wasn't sure I could take it...)

The moderator said a few words about Organizing for America as the follow-on to Obama for America and the campaign, which gave me (playing I Spy) an opening to ask what the funding sources are. He was vague (deliberately, I think), first saying "same as the campaign, private donations," then "well, obviously some very large donors," then "it's a project of, a partnership with the DNC."

I asked, what is the purpose of these actions in terms of influencing the levers of power, and one of the Obama people seconded my question. Answer: to get people to call, write, or email their congressional reps and senators, to influence them to support the President's agenda.

A fairly enthusiastic discussion of process issues ensued. Clearly they were proud of the grass-roots effort that, in their view, put Obama in office, and they want to continue it. There was much "insider" advice emanating from those who had been interns for politicians, as well as from Wiser Head, about the much higher value (they claim) of phone calls, letters, and emails relative to street demonstrations. "Every letter or phone call is worth a rally." The theory is that if you made the effort to call or write, you certainly will make the effort to vote. But "50 idiots demonstrating in Market Square" can be ignored. (I fail to see the logic myself; people who make the effort to demonstrate on the street won't bother to vote?) One interesting claim from a former intern: emails are quite effective when time is critical. They go directly into a database and will be counted right away. Letters have a delayed effect.

Taking advantage of someone's mention of the importance of the "public option", my excellent co-activist asked what exactly Obama's policy is on that. There ensued a comical and sad scene, as they were completely nonplussed, saying "we'll have to wait until the bill is written," and "whatever he promised during the campaign." The question then naturally arose: how far would we accept a compromise on the public option? Responses: "That word hasn't come down yet;" "We have to support it [Obama's compromise] no matter what." At that point Wiser Head intervened with "Oh no, we're not robots!"

We had not accused them of being robots or anything else. We were careful to say we are allies and we want to strengthen Obama's hand from the left.

There ensued a short debate on single payer; predictably, they claimed that it's not "feasible" right now. My buddy made the very good point that in fact the incrementalists are "fighting the last war," that is, they are looking at things as if it's 1993 and lots of people still have faith in their health insurance plans. I dragged in the Obama quote from 2003 about how single payer is the right thing and we could have it if we could take back Congress and the White House. Wiser Head then wanted to know, well, what's your bottom line, i.e., were we crazies who would let the perfect be the enemy of the good? I tried as best I could to frame it differently, to say that my bottom line is to fight for good policy and not give away the store before bargaining begins. Unfortunately it didn't occur to me until an hour later that I could have said, "My bottom line is that I advocate the policy I want, not the policy that my opponents want me to settle for."

This was my first real-life brush with true Obama activists (as opposed to family and friends who drank the Kool-Aid but confined their activities to putting up signs, voting, and making would-be-clever snide remarks about Clinton, McCain, Palin, and ignorant Southerners). I confess I was shocked to find them following the script of my prejudices so closely. I hoped to be pleasantly surprised, but it was not to be. Of course, they were nice enough, they politely tolerated the two crazy old biddies and their unrealistic policy goals, they clearly mean well and want to accomplish good things. But they were woefully uninterested in policy. It was all process, the Movement (though they didn't use the word --too sixties, I suppose), and trust in the Leader.

UPDATE Here is the OFA comment that links to this post --lambert

UPDATE More. Anyone else have the experience reported here? Sounds good, and correlates with what the Raging Grannies said here at point (c). Again, since I can't link to the comment directly, I'll provide a screen shot:

More policy, please! (Although half being single payer is too small a percentage!) --- lambert