Things Are Bad When Organizing For America Can't Sell Free Rainbows and Lollipops

A nice little tidbit from a Politico article on OFA from this morning:

It’s not that Obama’s grassroots army has been standing idle.

Jeremy Bird, the organization’s deputy national director, can tick off a host of behind-the-scenes accomplishments: More than 1.5 million people have taken more than 3 million actions — including canvassing, phonebanking and hosting local events — to promote the president’s plan.

 

More than a million people have signed a declaration supporting his top principles — lowering costs, providing more consumer choices, and expanding coverage. They’ve run advertising and, in a single August week, 60,000 backers of Obama's plan made personal visits to their local congressional office to register their support for it.

If you go to OFA's page with this declaration of principles we see the following:

• Reduce Costs — Rising health care costs are crushing the budgets of governments, businesses, individuals and families and they must be brought under control
• Guarantee Choice — Every American must have the freedom to choose their plan and doctor – including the choice of a public insurance option
• Ensure Quality Care for All — All Americans must have quality and affordable health care

Much ink has been spilt arguing that it is next to impossible to satisfy all three of these principles, particularly through the Dems' approach. However, I doubt many would disagree with these principles if merely snapping our fingers, using the Law of Attraction, or selling our thetans to Xenu would put them into practice. This is Hope-And-Change Pedro Sanchez talk at its best.

Now the kicker: out of 13 million people who are at least nominal members of OFA and presumably were engaged enough with the President to volunteer with OB2008, only around 1 million were willing to put their mark next to this.

When 12 out of 13 OFA members won't click a box next to a vague committment to making all of their wildest dreams will come true, I'd say Obama has jumped the shark.