Squaring the Culture

President-elect Obama announced a move late last week that will make his campaign organization a permanent, non-profit entity serving his political agenda. According to the LA Times:

The organization, known internally as “Barack Obama 2.0,” is being designed to sustain a grass-roots network of millions that was mobilized last year to elect Obama and now is widely considered the country’s most potent political machine…

Though the plan still is emerging, one source with knowledge of the internal discussion said the organization could have an annual budget of $75 million in privately raised funds. Another said it would deploy hundreds of paid staff members — possibly one for every congressional district in certain politically important states and even more in larger battlegrounds such as Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina….

Former Presidents have had their White House staffs, of course, and Karl Rove organized a nationwide mailing list for Republican initiatives. Ronald Reagan communicated directly with the American people via radio and television broadcasts to create ad hoc, grass-roots movements to put pressure on Congress to make certain things happen. None of them, however, maintained a permanent, separately-funded, private political machine. This is something new in American politics, although it occurs to me that it’s actually common in African politics, whence he might have obtained the idea. Thank cousin Odinga.

Jim Geraghty at NRO draws particular attention to this comment in the article:

…Obama’s political staff is deciding whether to create a service organization that would use the vast corps of its grass-roots campaign supporters. As described by one source knowledgeable with the discussions, this nonprofit arm would be used to help victims of natural disasters, but would do so under the Obama umbrella while continuing to build the overall network’s massive e-mail database.

Ace of Spades responds directly to this suggestion:

Unacceptable. Obama is seeking to create a shadow bureaucracy answerable not to the taxpayer but only to himself.

I regard it as I might if the President decided to continue to operate, hypothetically, his oil-drilling company while acting as President; it creates unacceptable conflicts of interest between the President as Constitutional head of government and the President as private citizen, and his private concerns detract from his time and ability to concentrate on public concerns. I agree with AoS: this is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, Allahpundit notes that the primary focus of the organization seems to be to pressure wavering Democrats into toeing the party line, enforcing party unity under the new, Obama-centric regime. This strikes him as consistent with the “personality cult” feel of the Obama campaign. Democrats are voicing some discomfort with the move, suspecting that their own re-election might be threatened if they act independently. Given Obama’s experience with Chicago ward politics and the level of coercive thuggery we saw during the campaign, I’d say they have reason to feel discomfort.

Clearly, though, I was wrong about one thing regarding Mr. Obama; he’s not incompetent, at least not politically. This is powerful stuff. It’s just… creepy. Maybe ominous.