From the New York Times:
Senator Barack Obama is drawing up plans for extensive advertising and voter-turnout drives across the nation, hoping to capitalize on his expected fund-raising advantage over Senator John McCain to force Republicans to compete in states they have not had to defend in decades. ...With his decision to give up public financing and the spending limits that go with it, Mr. Obama has added several seasoned hands to his advertising team, a harbinger of a multifaceted television campaign that people inside and outside Obama headquarters said would grow well beyond its already large presence in 18 states. ...He is also dispatching paid staff members to all states, an unusual move by the standards of modern presidential campaigns where the fight is often contained to contested territories. ...Mr. Obama’s strategists are studying data from focus groups, magazine subscription lists and census studies, the first steps toward an intensive door-to-door drive, using volunteers overseen by a growing staff of organizers. Their aim is to reach voters with messages tailored to their interests through mail, e-mail and word of mouth. ...aides to Mr. Obama expect to have something Mr. McCain likely will not: enough resources to eliminate the hard choices campaigns have traditionally faced when balancing the competing needs of their various state efforts. “These resources allow you to not make decisions based on financial limitations,” Mr. Plouffe said in an interview. Referring to a state that has long leaned Republican, he added, “If we want to go play in a state like Georgia” in the fullest way, “we’ll be able to do that.” ...By the end of the month, the Obama campaign will have a director and staff members in all 50 states. While some states will have only a few workers assigned to them, the biggest battlegrounds will have scores, many of whom will arrive by the Fourth of July. The campaign is in many ways building on a strategy championed by Howard Dean, the party chairman who has been pressing Democrats to establish a presence in all states rather than focus primarily on battlegrounds. But Mr. Obama is putting his own stamp on the plan by moving much of the party’s operations from Washington to his headquarters in Chicago and installing Paul Tewes, one of his top organizers, to oversee it. Party leaders in Republican-leaning states like Georgia and Montana are already reporting an influx of paid Obama staffers and volunteers who were sent there to begin registering potential Obama voters. Mr. Obama’s team is also sending resources to Virginia, which no Democratic presidential candidate has won since 1964. Abbi Easter, treasurer of the state’s Democratic Party, said Mr. Obama had dispatched five paid staff members to the state to begin organizing a voter registration drive. “I’ve been doing Democratic politics in the state for 25 years,” Ms. Easter said, “and this is such a novelty I feel like a kid at their first Christmas.” She said she was also expecting help from as many as 100 of the 3,600 “Obama Organizing Fellows,” a group of full-time volunteers fanning out across the country to oversee local registration efforts. The mobilization is being helped along by Mr. Obama’s robust Internet operation specializing in reaching out to the younger voters who use social networking sites like Facebook.
Senator Barack Obama told the nation’s mayors on Saturday that current urban policy was obsolete and needed to be replaced by a model that focused on rational metropolitan growth rather than chiefly on inner-city crime and poverty. ...“Yes we need to fight poverty; yes, we need to fight crime,” Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said in a midday address to the United States Conference of Mayors. “Yes, we need to strengthen our cities. But we also need to stop seeing our cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution. Because strong cities are the building blocks of strong regions, and strong regions are essential for a strong America.” ...In his speech to the mayors, Mr. Obama said the federal government should provide aid in building and repairing the roads, rail networks, electrical grids, water systems and telecommunications networks that stitch together metropolitan areas.... But he said cities and states should invest more in education to produce the work force needed to compete in a global economy. Mr. Obama promised to untangle the maze of federal bureaucracy that has grown up over decades that made it difficult for mayors to know where to turn for federal assistance. He also pledged to appoint the first White House director of urban policy, to be an advocate in Washington for the cities.
From the Palm Beach Post:
...In Obama's remarks to the mayors, he said he would be their "partner in Washington" if he becomes president. He pledged to restore federal spending on community-oriented policing programs, community development block grants and anti-poverty measures and to launch a "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank".... "We will fund this bank as we bring the war in Iraq to a responsible close," said Obama. He said money now spent in Iraq could be better spent "in Phoenix, Nashville, Seattle and metropolitan areas across this country." Obama also called for new incentives for state and local governments to encourage regional "clusters of growth and innovation" with cities as the backbone.
From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
Vowing to be a "partner in the White House," Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday told the nation's mayors that Republican John McCain's proposed tax cuts would deny federal funds to fix decaying infrastructure in regions like South Florida, and prevent development of inner cities with block grants and anti-poverty programs. "You see the traffic along I-95 in Miami," Obama told a gathering of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami. "You see the crumbling roads and bridges, the aging water and sewer pipes, the faltering electrical grids that cost us billions in blackouts, and repairs and traffic lights." He then criticized McCain for opposing federal spending on flood prevention programs and touting a gas tax holiday that would take money from highway repairs and "hand it over to the oil companies." ...Obama spoke for about 25 minutes, outlining a wide range of plans to rewire all schools with broadband Internet access, restructure ports and highway systems for better trade access, and develop public transit comparable to that of Europe and Asia. He frequently spoke of the need to see cities as interlinked parts of regions defined by urban centers, suburbs and far-flung "exurbs."
From the Times Herald-Record:
Anyone and everyone can get involved. Harnessing the power of the Internet, the Barack Obama campaign has made it possible for stay-at-home moms, teachers and even high school students to donate money, hold voter registration drives and organize campaign rallies. Local Obama volunteers are betting on that technology and their grassroots movement to drum up support for the Democratic senator's presidential campaign in the mid-Hudson as the next phase of the race begins. "It was very exciting during the primaries, and now it's going to get exciting again," said Sonia Ayala, one of two Obama delegates from New York's 19th Congressional District. "I don't remember past elections in which regular folks not involved in the Democratic Party wanted to get so involved." Ayala, 50, and her Blooming Grove neighbor and fellow Obama delegate, Fred Cook, have been leading the campaign in Orange County. They are hosting the first Obama networking event since the primaries Sunday at the Tuscan Cafe on South Street in the Village of Warwick. "I believe this is, for my generation and the future of my kids, the most important election in our history," said Ayala, a mother of two who also has campaigned for county Legislator Noel Spencer, D-Chester, and 2004 presidential contender John Kerry. Angela Valles-Edwards has used the site www.barackobama.com to help build a presence for the Obama campaign in Dutchess County. "I just picked up the phone and said, 'Is it OK if we have a voter registration drive?' " recalled the 43-year-old administrative assistant from Fishkill. "When I got the OK, I put it on the site, and people responded." But stoking support even in Republican-majority areas like Orange County, for example, is crucial for the national campaign, Obama volunteers said. More than half of Obama's funding has come from donations of $200 or less, making even one extra invested person count. And an army of supporters in New York could easily be mobilized through the Internet to hotly contested races elsewhere, volunteers said. "If it's beneficial to go to Pennsylvania or Ohio, then I'd go," said Cook, who is also president of the Washingtonville School Board. One defining characteristic of the campaign has been its ability to enlist supporters from a wide variety of racial, class and age groups, volunteers said.
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