HAPPY BIRTHDAY OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA:
WE NEED YOU TO HELP #KEEPVIRGINIABLUE AND SPREAD THE GIFT OF DEMOCRACY IN 2021.
#YesWeCanAgain! Get involved:
Celebrate with us at 5pm in Arlington, VA or 7pm in Washington, DC near the White House on August 4th!
Join us for Blue Victory War Room and #KeepVirginiaBlue War Room on Mobilize Mondays!
Sign The Petition to invite President Obama to help organize in Virginia!
Share with Hashtags: #Obama60 #YesWeCanAgain #VA4ObamaLovers
Congratulations on your 60th Birthday, President Obama!
I am sure everyone who remembers your election will feel old when thinking about that statistic. And we might feel a bit tired considering how your journey twisted and turned as you led such great triumphs but ended with the presidency of Donald Trump which ushered in a new culture of American tribalism that represented the opposite of what you stood for.
Today, as you take some time to reflect, I ask that you consider putting your ‘Community Organizer’ Hat back on at this stage of your career to help guide the Democratic Party during this perilous time.
I have a feeling the best reward you could recieve right now is the gift of inspiring and watching the next generation of political leaders lead their way to a triumphant victory for American Democracy over the armies of hate, ignorance and fascism that plague our country.
So, I would like to offer you an invitation to join us in Virginia to begin that journey as you will receive endless appreciation and satisfaction in return that will help you fit in the last piece of the puzzle of your legacy as permanently transforming our nation with your vision of Hope and Change.
Therefore, I am not just asking for you to visit for an October Rally or Fundraiser but to take a hands-on approach to help us win with the participation of alumni from your previous campaigns if possible.
And after do we do, we should take that show on the road in 2022.
We need you to sit down to listen and mentor the next generation of campaign staff and volunteer organizers on the ground to teach the “Obama Way” of leadership.
Your campaign was driven by a “No Drama” Obama attitude and built on the motto, “Respect. Empower. Include. Organize. Win.”
Democrats need to be consistently reminded of those words and design their campaigns around those values or we risk the pitfalls that you faced during your first mid-term election in 2010 and ultimately at the end of your second term in 2016.
Democrats need to spend as much time thinking about political strategy as they do their policy strategies or they will continue to lose their opportunities to govern.
We witnessed this pattern yet again in 2020, when after gaining confidence from the 2018 “Blue Wave,” where despite record turnout President Biden won the Electoral College by only a hair in 3 pivotal battleground states and we experienced some serious setbacks in congressional and state house races nationwide.
Although I support attempts at “unity” within the party, I could see pretty quickly starting in 2009 that too many people from top to bottom haven’t understood or committed the culture that built Obama For America which inspired me to get involved and work for the cause like a full-time senior staffer while serving as an un-paid volunteer.
And based on the intra-party proxy wars I see on a regular basis, like in the OH-11 Special Election, I am concerned about whether President Biden can hold our fragile coalition together without a strategic intervention.
We need you to “Show” not just “Tell” the stories of how you grew as a messenger and were able to secure a historic opportunity as the Keynote Speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
We need you to “Show” not just “Tell” how you crafted a message that could detail a broad vision for change while also taking the time to share our common ground and how we can move Forward together.
We need you to “Show” not just “Tell” the stories of how you led and managed the most surprising and successful presidential campaign in American history that elected our first African-American President.
We need you to “Show” not just “Tell” how your campaign pioneered the use of branding and social marketing for candidates.
We need you to “Show” not just “Tell” the stories of how you governed as well, which led to your historic re-election and helped you leave office with high levels of favorability among the American people.
Democrats have made great strides in terms of developing our organizing strategy in recent years since Trump was elected, and I think our new DNC Chair Jaime Harrison is stepping it up with the new “Organizing Everywhere” program, but this is about much more than talking about organizing, hiring people, creating a slack channel and adding more training events to the calendar.
Democrats need to focus on developing a wide-scale political culture that is as “progressive” and “democratic” as their culture of discussing policy matters.
When we talk about policy we attack “top down” structures led by elites that design systems where the benefits “trickle down” to the electorate. But when we talk about politics we often are pitching “top down” strategies where informational and financial resources may or may not “trickle down” to our grassroots base.
But the one thing we learned from your leadership is we need our politics and policy to work from the “bottom up” and the “middle out” to lift all boats.
We need a more collaborative team-based approach to campaigns with a growth mindset where every Democrat is enlisted into an army of Trusted Messengers that will regularly engage their communities nationwide.
We need Soul Trolls.
From your perspective, I can see how solving this problem probably wasn’t an easy challenge considering how you had more immediate threats to deal with as President like saving the economy, reforming the healthcare system and safely winding down two wars.
But now is the time. We are witnessing daily attacks that put our Democracy at stake and you know full well that history and redistricting won’t be on our side in 2022.
The cultish anger that is being stirred up by some powerful bad actors is ripping apart our country in such a way that even our Lives are at stake as we deal with the rapid denial of basic science, medicine and facts.
Democrats need to be taught to stop worrying about the shiny objects and reacting to the “Outrage of the Day” and spend some time learning how to hustle their way to build our movement block-by-block and voter-by-voter.
We need to emphasize the importance of “relational organizing” to build an army of Trusted Messengers that can tap into our social networks to influence our friends, family and colleagues then mentor our campaign staff and supporters until they become community organizers in their own right.
We need to collaborate better and cut down the constant threat of information silos.
We need to study other great movements and campaigns from all walks of life to learn and replicate their success.
We need to listen to messaging experts like George Lakoff who teaches the importance of positive ways to frame your ideas and leadership experts like Simon Sinek who teaches the importance of explaining to your audience “Why” they should follow your vision and how to play an “Infinite Game” not just scramble for short term survival.
We need to be discussing New Solutions not just New Obstacles.
We need to show every single Democrat how to Respect. Empower. Include. Organize. And Win.
We need more people identifying as Obama-Biden Democrats.
I look forward to you spreading Hope and Change in the Commonwealth soon.
Some of us will be celebrating your big day in Virginia and also near the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday night where I will be telling attendees about how we can work together to make sure your lessons can help us reach every voter.
Feel free to say hello to us on Twitter with #Obama60 #YesWeCanAgain #Virginia4ObamaLovers and let’s get this party started!
Regards,
Jim McBride
Virginia For Obama
Generation Obama, Washington, DC
P.S. One more lesson I would suggest is to stand your ground and not worry about ignorant criticism. You shouldn’t have scaled down your party!
ABOUT JIM MCBRIDE
As President of the Arlington Young Democrats and Vice Chair of Precinct Operations for the Arlington Democrats in 2007, Jim launched a local young professionals outreach chapter entitled Generation Obama-Washington, DC and helped organize his state’s grassroots-led campaign during the 2008 Primary working with Obama For America as Virginia For Obama’s Volunteer Database Coordinator and facilitated multiple successful events. He was one of the top young professional Gen44 fundraisers with Obama 2012.
In 2011, Jim founded a successor community entitled Network For Progress and in 2020 he founded Blue Victory War Room events to present campaign updates and volunteer resources to supporters of the Biden-Harris campaign as part of the 2020 Victory “Communities United” Program. He also has been active in national/local party elections and primary elections.
Jim McBride has nearly three decades of experience in communications and politics, graduating from Ithaca College with a Major in Corporate Communication and a Minor in Politics in 1996.
