OFA threatened to kick me off the site permanently for having a house party where single payer would be on the table. I wrote about it at the time:

http://ellenofthetenth.blogspot.com/2009/06/change-we-can-be-afraid-of.html

Then, there was Jeremy on Ed Schultz a few weeks ago completely unable to say anything about the Blue Dog Democrats against the health care bill. The problem with OFA is that it's so tied to insiders and candidates, it cannot be considered the grassroots group it claims to be.

I always figured OFA was Obama's attempt to control the progressives so they could be silenced. The administration keeps leaking disparaging remarks about "the left of the left" and bloggers in pajamas who should join the real world. I finally unsubscribed from OFA when Obama's qualified public support for the Public option seemed to be contradicted by his support for the Baucus bill and when Harry Reid's support for the public option turned out to be stronger than the administration's.

I hope MoveOn, Democracy for America, and Fire Dog Lake remain the strongest Progressive voices because I just don't trust OFA to be anything more than a DLC plot to silence criticism from the left.

I joined OFA partly because I was inspired by Obama and because I wanted to make a difference in health care reform. But, it became clear very early on the only objective of OFA was to support the “current” agenda of the president. As with Health care reform, it was not about getting a bill the public wanted it was more about getting a bill the president wanted. OFA didn’t seem to care that most of their volunteers expressed an interest for the public option; they just wanted to make sure the president got his bill.

I quit OFA because they did not hear what the volunteers where saying, they had no focus. To me a grassroots effort is an organization that is ran and operated on the ideals of it members. OFA is nothing more than an extension of the president’s arm. When you sit in a meeting and all the volunteers ask why the president has not come out strongly in favor of a public option and the only response is talking points, you start to hear the real reason for OFA. Support the Ideals of the president and not your members.

I am one of those Americans who for the last 40 years never got involved with politics until I saw what a mess G.W.B. made of this nation. I to, like most Americans, looked for hope in Obama, and still do, but……..

A donor boycott of the DNC huh? I'm sure that will make gay marriage, DADT and repealing DOMA happen so much faster...

So IndiePro now I see where you are coming from with your constant whining about the Obama Admin not being liberal enough.

This is going to sound horrible, but honestly the American public does not give a flying fuck about gay marriage. Really. At best it is a fluff issue that most people are downright indifferent about, because unless one is gay or a some right wing anti-prop 8 wacko type, it is an issue that doesn't effect them one way or the other.

And in comparison to finishing health care reform and at minimum ending the most egregious abuses by the parasitic insurance industry, not to mention the climate change legislation and the Oberstar transportation bill, the whole "Marriage Equality" and DADT thing are minor issues that will have to wait.

FYI, while it might be technically possible for the POTUS to issue an executive order repealing DADT, it could restored by the flick of a pen by a future president or future Congress. And that is contingent upon the executive order surviving a court challenge that would be inevitably brought by Focus on the Family and their fellow travelers. While the President may be the commander in chief of the armed forces, Congress is the branch of gov't with the authority to write the Universal Code of Military Justice. UCMJ is simply not up to the President to decide. Truman was able to order desegregation in 1948 because it was a command issue, not a legal one. If blacks serving in white units had been prohibited by the UCMJ, then Truman would have had to go to Congress to have it repealed. In that case it would have been much later than 1948 for desegregation to actually happen.

I'm sorry for anyone who is gay that they've had to wait for these injustices to be fixed. If I were in your shoes, I would be pissed too. That being said, a gay couple not being able to get married or full transferable benefits because of DOMA, or simply suspending any prosecutions resulting from DADT until it is repealed isn't going to kill anyone.

Does it suck? Yes. However, compared to the thousands of Americans, gay or straight, who die every year because they lack health insurance, or the small businesses who can't afford to hire more workers or have to cut hours because they can't afford to supply health care to anyone new, or the spectre of climate change and our dependence on foreign fuels, or our crumbling infrastructure, all of those issues are minor.

Yes. I said it. Minor. So suck it up. Stop comparing gay marriage to the civil rights movement. Last time I checked, homosexuals aren't being lynched on daily basis, denied their right to vote, or being shot with fire hoses and attacked by police dogs for exercising their right to free speech and assembly. That comparison costs you guys big time when it comes to support in black communities. It costs you in minority communities in general.

The Democrat's are on your side here. But you need to take a hard look at priorities, not so much from the Dem point of view but from the John Q Public POV. Support for gay marriage has been slipping. People aren't becoming more bigoted against gays IMHO. Even those sympathetic to gay rights causes are getting pissed when progressive groups start attacking their own and their allies in the middle of tough policy fights (ie Health Care Reform) because action on the issues they care about aren't moving fast enough.
It makes it look like the only reason gays were backing the Democratic Party was because they were expecting Obama and Congress to drop everything and wave a magic wand so on January 21st gay couples could wed and DOMA would be gone, and their marriages would be recognized in all 50 states. If gay rights groups want that then they need to find a new strategy, because this piecemeal one ain't working.

I'm hoping those considering a donor boycott of the DNC, OFA, Obama campaign etc, will reconsider. Right now, there is a premium on party unity. Unity is vital in order to be able to get universal healthcare passed, as it will be in order to get the Senate version of ACES passed, etc. If big legislation isn't passed by 2010 then we are going to lose seats big time, possibly even the House of Reps to the Repugs. If that happens, then forget about repealing DADT and DOMA. If anything, prepare to fight more POS's like federal traditonal marriage amendments and the like. It doesn't have a prayer of happening but gay friendly legislation will have even less of chance in that event.
Unity will be rewarded. You will get your day alot sooner by being team players than if you cause discord.

In the event that the Dems in the run up to the 2010 midterms are polling badly and it will look like a bloodbath, they will jettison the least popular parts of their platform. Last I checked gay marriage and DOMA isn't polling so well and hasn't been for some time. Repealing DADT could easily be tacked to a defense appropriations bill. DOMA is going to be a tough fight, and it is determined that there are more popular policies that could be passed to help chances Nov 2010, then it's gonna get kicked down the road for another day.

The cold hard political calculation is that throwing gays under the bus or losing the House in 2010 because of a brutal campaign on a wedge issue for the vast majority of the public, jettinising gay rights is going to be the way to go. However, if we stick together and not fracture the party, than we can not just hold onto our majorities, but hopefully pick up more seats and maybe even some new more progressive faces. Then repealing DOMA, DADT and maybe even a federal law supporting gay marriage not just becomes possible but practically a given IMHO.

You've been waiting a long time, and everyone feels bad about that, but hang in there. Doing anything else would basically be throwing yourself under the bus and no one wants to see that happen. Seriously.

As an OFA insider from the beginning there is no way to overstate the epic disappointment their strategy has been. For the legions on campaign volunteers who saw they could make a difference and wanted to bring it back home to their own neighborhoods and cities, they have been consigned to host phone bank parties and pimp out their friends to become team members. Message to be supplied later. Literally.

This is a volunteer PR firm, which is okay as long as the volunteers like the message OFA hands down. Hundreds of the most dedicated and experienced people have already dropped out. Not because they don't understand compromise or unity, but because this isn't real community organizing. I've read the plan: legions of people prepared to dial other people and ask them to call their legislators...to say what? Whatever you are told.

Message to Mitch and Jeremy: Remember during the campaign when Barack said "this isn't about me, it's about you"? You have forgotten the message. When we asked for change, it wasn't for the payphone!

You could have made something much more meaningful, something that really helped people help their communities, not just get through the press cycle.

When Barack was a community organizer he was helping the community to solve issues, mobilize around solutions and teaching people to organize for themselves.

Phone banking is "self gratification" for number junkies. I'd like to see statistical data on how many people who are called and asked to call their legislators actually do make that call. It's telling that OFA has no way of knowing either and yet this is the focus of everything they are doing.

Thin, very thin.

I have to say this is embarrassing. Not to mention completely bogus. Organizers throughout the country talk and the numbers being touted are absolute nonsense. I am based in CA and 20 people showed up to reasonably publicized Camp OFA training session. Organizers are not allowed to speak, have been removed from email lists... repeatedly, and have been left hanging in the wind time and time again.

In CA they continue to take credit for the work of organizers who gave up and blew them off to work with other Orgs or run their own events. They have even had the audacity to claim OFA victory on OTHER ORGANIZATIONS events!

Not one thing has been generated out of this waste of an "organization" Would love to see the actual numbers from contributions coming in. Maybe you all at TPMDC can do the homework on that for us cause I don't believe it for a minute.

Pathetic. Move On, HCAN, Health Access, Brave New Films, Local organizers all have stuff for you to do and need your help and trust me their contribution numbers and their action results are much higher.

This is a top down org and no one is interested in the opinions of the GR people in the field. Move on and get some real work done. They do not represent us.

What I don't like about OFA is that they constantly send me emails which I can't reply to and when I go to their site, the only way to contact them is to go to the WhiteHouse site. I'm very angry at the White House for the obvious reasons and am very irritated that OFA thinks they can just keep sending me empty words with no way to reply. If OFA is so modern and forward-looking they should realize that they're poisoning their base and alienating people like me, who contributed $2,000 and worked tirelessly at the campaign office.

This is a tough one.

I was an RFO (regional field organizer) during the campaign, but I don't really do that much with OFA any more. My philosophy is they're a tool in the toolbox - not the whole toolbox.

Back in July, OFA was having us call safe blue districts in CA - they were list building. This wasn't something I was at all interested in, so I partnered with another progressive organization to obtain VAN access. I cut lists for two Blue Dog lawmakers in CA who were known fence-sitters - Cardoza and Costa.

Utilizing the networks I had built while working on the campaign, I recruited phone bankers from all over the state. I welcomed all comers - want to advocate for single payer? Sure! Wanted to talk a constituent's ear off about the public option? Glad to have you!

Six weeks before OFA started calling into those districts, I'm proud to say we met our goal of 10,000 phone calls to those lawmaker's constituents. In the end, Costa and Cardoza ended up voted for health care reform (and unfortunately, for Stupak as well)

I know so many who have become discouraged by the path OFA has taken, and I completely understand why. But the fact of the matter is, OFA trained me how to do the work, and I've found that knowledge extremely useful.

I also know there are a lot of really great volunteers in that organization who mean well and want to do the right thing. So while I remain openly critical of OFA's policy, you will never find me being critical of the vols themselves. I keep those lines of communication open so that if OFA decides on a course of action I can get behind, I can be there to help. And help I will.

It's a market place of activism folks. Don't like what OFA is doing and live in CA? I'd be happy to have your help. Feel free to email me at veniceforchange@gmail.com

Uh Oh: http://gay.americablog.com/2009/11/dont-ask-dont-give.html

You know you have to dance with the people who brought you to the party or at least pretend like you plan on it.

I haven't been on a conference call in 5 months where ANYTHING other than health care has been discussed. The wars, DOMA, DODT, Gitmo, nothing! And Barack has actually done some cool things that many of us worked our asses off during the campaign to see happen. So when something like Stupek comes along it feels like months and money spent only to be holding on to a shit sandwich.

Boys these are ROOKIE mistakes! Your volunteers like Ms. Blucow above know a lot more about volunteer engagement and multi-tasking than you. Please! take a hint!