What Happened To Organizing for America?
For months I’ve been asking myself, as I watched the Democrats lose the governorship in Virginia and New Jersey, then a Senate seat in Massachusetts, and finally the “train wreck” of the primary in my home state of Illinois last week, where the heck is Organizing for America (OFA)? Former known as Obama for America, OFA is the grass-roots organization set-up and run by David Plouffe that powered Obama’s bid for the Presidency. By election day the group had 13 million e-mail supporters, 4 million donors, 2.5 million activists connected through the My.BarackObama social network, and an amazing $18 million left in the bank.
Well Tim Dickinson has an article in Rolling Stone that outlines in detail exactly what happened. To sum it up in a sentence what happened was a lack of leadership, no strategic planning, and political infighting. Wow, surprising something like that happens in Washington, DC.
Branding The Recovery & Reinvestment Act
President Barack Obama announced today during an appearance at the Department of Transportation that his administration will begin placing a logo on all projects funded by the recently passed economic stimulus package so that American citizens can easily recognize the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Pretty smart idea from a branding point-of-view.
Update [3/4/09]: Some background info on the new logo from Brand New:
The design was coordinated by Chicago-based Mode—the same agency who contracted Sender to create the Obama ’08 campaign logo—who this time turned to All-American designers Aaron Draplin in Portland, Oregon and Chris Glass in Dayton, Ohio. [Note to all designers: For your 2009 business plan, make sure you have a "Make Friends with Mode" item in it.] Also, at Mode’s web site you can see a nice picture and video of Obama presenting the logos.
Branding The Recovery & Reinvestment Act
President Barack Obama announced today during an appearance at the Department of Transportation that his administration will begin placing a logo on all projects funded by the recently passed economic stimulus package so that American citizens can easily recognize the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Pretty smart idea from a branding point-of-view.
Update [3/4/09]: Some background info on the new logo from Brand New:
The design was coordinated by Chicago-based Mode—the same agency who contracted Sender to create the Obama ’08 campaign logo—who this time turned to All-American designers Aaron Draplin in Portland, Oregon and Chris Glass in Dayton, Ohio. [Note to all designers: For your 2009 business plan, make sure you have a "Make Friends with Mode" item in it.] Also, at Mode’s web site you can see a nice picture and video of Obama presenting the logos.
Word Cloud Analysis Of Obama vs. Bush
A word cloud analysis of Barack Obama’s first and George W. Bush’s second inaugural address. As you might expect the most common words in the each speech were dramatically different.
