It's His Party
Barack Obama might be running on a post-partisan platform, but he
is more focused on building the Democratic Party than any other
candidate in recent history.
Dana Goldstein and Ezra Klein | August 18, 2008
An unassuming building at 430 South Capitol Street, in a forlorn
corner between the Capitol and a highway overpass, is the home
address of the Democratic Party. But though mail still gets delivered
to the Washington, D.C., address, many of the Democratic National
Committee's employees--the men and women who make up the
party's central infrastructure--are no longer around to receive it.
They are in Chicago, where Barack Obama moved them after he
captured the Democratic Party's nomination.
It was a peculiar decision for Obama, who had built his campaign,
and even his political identity, around an eloquently stated, post-
partisan revulsion with the divisiveness of modern party politics.
Following the strategy of "outsider" candidates before him, Obama
set his headquarters outside the District in order to create distance,
both physical and perceptual, between himself and the consultants,
interest groups, party hacks, and congressional busybodies who
populate the nation's capital.
The effort was so successful that some feared the Obama
phenomenon--the millions of young people passionate about his
campaign, the thousands who have lined roadsides just to wave at
the Illinois senator's motorcade--had become a force unto itself,
indifferent to the fortunes of the traditional Democratic Party,
unbound by a commitment to progressive ideology, and wholly
dependent on the character of Barack Obama. As blogger Matt Stoller
writes on OpenLeft.com, "Power and money in the Democratic Party
is being centralized around a key iconic figure. [Obama] is consolidating power within the party."
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