Obama Healthcare Reform: 98 Percent of OFA Members Reject White House Appeals
Millions OFA Members Reject “Historic” Obama Healthcare Reform Movement
Nasty OFA Emails Turning “Members” Off to Obama Reform?
“This is the moment our movement was built for.”
August 5, 2009 Barack Obama email to Organizing for America Members on healthcare reform
According to Jeremy Bird, Deputy Director of Organizing for America, an “astounding” 280,000 OFA members joined the President online for an OFA internet healthcare reform forum last Thursday.
Excerpt from Bird email to OFA members:
“On Thursday, an astounding 280,000 Organizing for America supporters gathered online to huddle with the President at our National Health Care Forum. With Congress about to return to Washington to make historic decisions on health insurance reform, the President chose this critical moment to speak directly to the OFA community. He reminded us of how far we’ve come and what we can accomplish together:”
Here’s what’s truly “astounding”: On January 21, 2009, if you’d asked any of the 13 million Organizing For America “members” if they’d like to have an opportunity to “huddle” with Obama, they’d have jumped at the chance. Seven months later, 98% were unwilling to sign up for the forum or show support for Obama’s “historic” healthcare reform.
More from Bird’s email:
“Remember one thing: Nothing is more powerful than millions of voices calling for change. That’s how we won this election. You know this, and that’s why since OFA launched its health reform campaign in June you’ve hosted 11,000 events in more than 2,500 towns in every single state and every single congressional district…I am absolutely confident that we can get this done, but I want everybody to remember, this has never been easy….We are not going to give up now. We are going to get this done.”
“11,000″ healthcare reform events held in “2,500″ towns since June equals less than 5 “events” per town in all 50 states. Unless 90,900 supporters of Obama healthcare reform attended each event-something the MSM would have reported-this is hardly the “millions” touted by Obama and OFA that support his healthcare reform.
Even more powerful: the 13 million OFA “members”, or 98%, who were sent emails about the forum and were offered the opportunity to “huddle” with Obama and rejected the White House’s appeal.
The unresponsiveness of OFA members hasn’t been due to a lack of Obama and the White House’s efforts. It’s interesting to look back at the rise and apparent rapid fall of Organizing for America, touted as the greatest grassroots movement of all time and just what constitutes an “OFA” member.
On January 15, 2009, President-elect Obama announced via Youtube the “creation” of Organizing for America, the “successor” of Obama For America:
OFA and the Magic 13 Million Number
On January 24, three days after Obama’s inauguration, Esquire interviewed Obama campaign head
David Plouffe:
“Organizing for America, he says, was six weeks in the making. In that time he spoke daily with Tim Kaine. They studied how the Obama campaign machine functioned and read briefings on how it could be transformed into Obama’s governing machine. Obama, he says, made clear that the mandate of Organizing for America was to push forward his agenda for change, not for reelection. “I can assure you it isn’t that way with Obama. He sent that message out loud and clear, and I could not agree more strongly.”
The model they came up with will be an independent entity under the umbrella of the DNC, with a separate staff in Washington, its own structure and Web site, and field offices with technical staff and fieldworkers across the country. Like the campaign operation. Also like the campaign, Organizing for America won’t accept any outside PAC or lobbyist money. Instead, it will be funded solely from individual donors.”
“Most of what this entity will be doing is building grassroots support for issues and politics,” says Plouffe. “Let’s say there’s an energy effort, an energy plan, that the president and some of Congress would like to get passed. People would get out there and talk to their neighbors and try to build support.” Petitions, canvassing, phone calls, house parties. David Plouffe will send out an e-mail or a video: America, we need your help. The state field offices will go into action. And the housewives will unsuckle themselves from Oprah and the college kids will put down their pong paddles, and together they will rise up and their voices will be heard.”
-Esquire.com
More from the Esquire article:
“The voice of David Plouffe rises now above the announcements and the suitcase wheels. You can tell he believes this could be bigger than the campaign he just led, won, and loved. This will be a direct link to the people who got Obama elected, a way to harness the grassroots power of thirteen million hopeful Americans who voted for change and have pledged to help Obama and Plouffe enact it.“
The “direct link” to the 13 million “hopeful Americans who voted for change” and “pledged” to help Obama and Plouffe were in fact, the 13 million email addresses of those who logged onto BarackObama.com during the election, signed up to volunteer, contributed to the Obama campaign, or bought Obama merchandise. The 13 million email addresses were then compiled into a list of Organizing for America “members”. The list was now under the auspices of the DNC, where OFA resided. Organizing for America then began to send emails addressing Obama issues to the new 13 million OFA “members” and, in most cases, asking for members to help by way of making a donation.
On June 6, OFA began a “multi-platform healthcare reform kickoff”: Houseparties, online chats, telephone calls, and emails to the 13 million OFA “members”.
On August 5th, the tone and tenor of the emails had changed and a pattern began to emerge: claims that “lies”, “smears” and “falsehoods” were responsible for the opposition to Obama and the Dem’s proposed healthcare reform.
Excerpt from email sent by Barack Obama on August 5, 2009, to OFA members:
“There are those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game, and they will stop at nothing to block reform. They are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change. And some people, not surprisingly, are getting pretty nervous. So we’ve got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight.”
Excerpt from Mitch Stewart, Director of OFA, August 9, 2009
“As you’ve probably seen in the news, special interest attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about health reform, and it’s getting ugly. Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats. We can’t let extremists hijack this debate, or confuse Congress about where the people stand.”
Excerpt from Mitch Stewart email to OFA members, August 10, 2009
“Members of Congress have been home for just a few days, and they’re already facing increased pressure from insurance companies, special interests, and partisan attack organizations that are spending millions to block health insurance reform.
These groups are using scare tactics and spreading smears about the President’s plan for reform, trying to incite constituents into lashing out at their representatives and disrupting their events.”
Excerpt from David Axelrod to OFA members, August 13, 2009
“Unfortunately, some of the old tactics we know so well are back — even the viral emails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions.”
“P.S. We launched www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck this week to knock down the rumors and lies that are floating around the internet.”
Excerpt from Mitch Stewart email to OFA members, August 19, 2009
“It feels like a new lie about health insurance reform crops up each day.”
“These lies create fear and anger, and we’re seeing the results around the country. Frightened crowds have flooded town halls, and the office of a Georgia representative was defaced with a swastika.”
“As the site makes clear, these lies are no accident. They’re part of a deliberate plot by the special interests who profit from the status quo to kill any reform at all. While Americans watch their paychecks dwindle, their coverage disappear, and their businesses struggle, special interests are trying to scare folks into opposing reform.”
“As we learned during the campaign, lies like these can spread like wildfire through viral emails and from friend to friend.”
What’s truly surprising about these numbers was the fact that after months of Obama campaigning on healthcare reform he was unable to tap into the reservoir of support that garnered him the Presidency a little over seven months ago. This reservoir is perceived as a viable source of grassroots support, of members of the voting public who could be “trusted” by those who were unsure of Obama’s “historic” healthcare reform.
Excerpt from Bird’s August 22nd email:
“But even the best plan only matters if it passes, and that’s where we all have a critical role to play. As the President said:
And that’s why what all of you do is so important, because people trust you — your neighbors, your friends, fellow community members — they trust you. They know you. And if you are presenting the facts clearly and fairly, I’m absolutely confident that we’re going to win this debate. But we’re going to have a lot of work to do and I’m grateful that you’re willing to do it. Let’s go get ‘em.”
Unfortunately for Bird, one such Organizing for America member was found to be not so “trustworthy”, Roxana Mayer, from Houston, Texas.
Mayer’s antics at Rep. Sheila Jackson’s Town Hall held on August 11 in Houston’s Fifth Ward caught the eye of Matt Bramanti and the Lone Star Times. On August 13, Bramanti published “Obama camp plants fake doc, Che fan at Jackson Lee forum“. During the Town Hall event, Mayer stood and proclaimed she was a primary care physician who supported Obama’s healthcare reform. Jackson then hugged Mayer. Bramanti thought the Mayer-Jackson exchange seemed a little “fishy” so he did some research. Bramanti found that Mayer wasn’t a doctor, but an Obama Organizing for America volunteer. The blog, Patterico Pontifications, discovered that Mayer was also an Obama delegate.
Ironically, Jeremy Bird’s August 22 OFA email addressed “lies” being perpetrated in the Obama healthcare reform debate:
Excerpt from Jeremy Bird email to OFA members, August 22, 2009
“Lies and fear must not have the last word about the health reform America so desperately needs.”
By LBG
Image – Herding cats
There seems to be serious problems with Obama’s sales techniques. Christians surely highly object to Democrats’ attempt to sell their health care bill as Christianity. See “Jesus Christ answers Obama health care:”
http://constitutionparti.blogspot.com/
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