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CAN THE NEW COMMANDER IN CHIEF SUSTAIN HIS ALL-VOLUNTEER STANDING ARMY?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2009

Traci Burch
Traci Burch*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Northwestern University
*
Professor Traci Burch, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, Scott Hall, 601 University Place, Evanston IL 60208. E-mail: t-burch@northwestern.edu
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Abstract

During his campaign, Barack Obama inspired record numbers of Americans to donate their time and money to his electoral efforts. Now that the campaign is over, can Obama sustain this civic engagement as he begins to govern? This paper examines the possibilities for sustaining Obama's electoral mobilization, introducing new data from fieldwork conducted from September 2008 to Election Day 2008 in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; and Charlotte, North Carolina. The data include staff interviews and observations of canvassing, rallies, and other get-out-the-vote efforts of the local Obama and McCain campaigns, the local Democratic and Republican Parties, and various nonprofit groups in each city. Based on these data it is clear that each city was characterized by excitement and heightened activity; however, the number of activities and the strength of the grassroots organization varied across the cities according to national electoral imperatives in ways that should affect the potential for future mobilization. As such, sustaining the mobilization of Obama's supporters faces several hurdles: campaign staff and volunteers in many cities were drawn from outside the community, tensions arose between local grassroots organizations and the campaign over resources and issue focus, and the extremely large amounts of money needed to finance the mobilization were not distributed evenly across cities and states.

Keywords

GOTVVoter MobilizationCivic EngagementPolitical ParticipationBarack ObamaCampaigns and Elections
Type
STATE OF THE ART
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , Spring 2009 , pp. 153 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2009

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