Organizing for Action, the advocacy off-shoot of Obama’s reelection campaign, has announced plans to copy the Tea Party and flood Congressional townhalls over the August recess. OFA’s goal is to push House Republicans to support Obama’s initiatives. The Left has spent years demonizing and attacking Tea Party activists. Now, they’ve decided to copy them.
“We are excited for OFA’s Action August where volunteers across the country will be taking all their incredible skills, hard work and passion into their communities, organizing events all month long to keep the pressure on their members of Congress to take action on issues, from comprehensive immigration reform to protecting women’s rights and gun violence prevention to combating climate change, OFA Spokesman Ben Finkenbinder said in a statement.
OFA is beginning its push on August 4th, the President’s birthday, with events across the nation promoting the benefits of ObamaCare. Activists will distribute fliers, demonstrate at Congressional district offices and hold rallies. Each week, OFA will organize a different “day of action” focused on issues like immigration, gay marriage and climate change.
The Tea Party rallies in August 2009 solidified opposition to ObamaCare. OFA hopes its efforts will build support for Obama’s broad agenda. OFA doesn’t seem to appreciate that the Tea Party largely arose as a result of the vocal public opposition to ObamaCare. The nucleus of what became the Tea Party began in early 2009 in opposition to Obama’s stimulus program. Its political power grew as the public joined it to oppose the health care mandate.
In other words, there weren’t strategy memos directing action in the August townhall meetings. There certainly wasn’t millions of dollars supporting the efforts. They just happened.
So, OFA ought to be able to make significant noise this August. The groups has raised tens of millions of dollars to support Obama’s agenda and has added staff quickly. It has state-level coordinators in more than half the states and the organization possesses the massive database of contacts that fueled Obama’s reelection.
It looks like the beginning of another long, hot summer recess.
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