For all the talk that the Dems, and the left in general, has neglected attention in developing a “farm team,” with an emphasis on training and infrastructure, party leaders seem to have gotten the message loud and clear. The latest example of this comes by way of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
This January, Obama’s Hopefund [Leadership PAC] will bankroll a “school’ to train first-time campaign workers and place them in campaigns across the country. The recruiting focus of Obama’s “Yes We Can” program will be young African Americans and Latinos.
Nate Tamarin, Hopefund’s director, said the aim of the week-long campaign school is to “create this whole class of young, talented staffers who can work their way up in the Democratic Party.”
Kudos to Obama for launching this kind of initiative. I don’t know the details of what the “campaign school” will emphasize, but knowing Obama, it’s likely to be a valuable program for participants. And if recent history is any guide, there are a few hundred Dem candidates who’ll likely want to talk to the program’s “graduates” about campaign jobs. One can only hope other party leaders with leadership PACs will follow his example and make this kind of effort at training young party activists, particularly with outreach to minority communities.
As for what this might mean for the junior senator from Illinois…
Formed early this year, Hopefund PAC has had little trouble raising money, not surprising given Obama’s near rock-star persona among Democrats nationwide…. In its first six months of existence, Hopefund raised $852,000 and donated nearly $100,000 to a cavalcade of colleagues and other politicians seeking office in 2006. At the end of June, Hopefund had $445,000 in the bank.
The formation of this campaign training school is one of a number of small steps the first-term senator has taken since coming into office in January to cement his status as a national figure in the party. He has signed a bevy of fundraising appeals for individual senators, including a Moveon.org-organized appeal for Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.) that raked in $800,000 in less than three days.
Obama has politely deflected questions about his future political ambitions. He seems a very unlikely presidential candidate in 2008, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) already casting her considerable shadow over the field. But if Democrats fail to win back the White House in three years time, get ready for chants of Obama 2012.
Sounds about right to me.