Democratic Party Changed Forever?

Perhaps the Democratic Party is fundamentally changed...and for a lifetime at least. Dionne talks about a large independent apparatus that will continue to operate from Obama's website. It is all based on "community organization."  Obama's method is old time politics mixed with community organization, and all of this is married to the internet. Obama has taken the best of old fashioned politics and has produced a town square on the web. It won't dismantle because the election is over; it is too powerful.  Republicans, Independents, and exiled Democrats are not organized. There is no real base for an opposition to operate from until someone understands these dynamics and begins to build something similar. I suppose the Gothic King Alaric attacked while the poor Romans were distracted. We are surprised, and it doesn't make sense to us...Redwine

read excerpt from The Post:

from The Washington Post....E.J. DionneJr.

Turning the Obama network into a vast national party organization could give Democrats durable advantages that the party has not enjoyed since the New Deal era, when Franklin Roosevelt built an alliance between local political machines and a growing labor movement.

But Plouffe himself has been much affected by the new way of campaigning he oversaw. His regular video reports to the troops turned him into something of a hero to the Obama faithful.

Moreover, Steve Hildebrand, Obama's deputy campaign manager, has argued that members of the network include many who are averse to traditional party politics: young people with weak party loyalties, independents and even some Republicans. He has been suggesting at Democratic gatherings that the Obama apparatus might instead constitute itself as an independent political organization -- friendly and parallel to the Democratic Party but a separate entity nonetheless. Obama supporters are also discussing how local networks could integrate into their communities through various forms of service work and activism. Obama's Web site is raising money for the victims of the Southern California fires....continue