Along with my colleague Dana, I've got a feature in this month's Prospect detailing the ways in which Obama's post-partisan reputation belies a much deeper engagement with the actual machinery of the Democratic Party than any Democratic nominee in recent history. The piece also gets into the transformation of the Democratic Party's brand from a burden to an asset, how Howard Dean's insurgent vision of downballot organizing and decentralized fundraising has quietly triumphed, and the apparent end of the party's internal resource wars. The upshot of all this is that Obama isn't just campaigning to win the election, he's trying to build a muscular party organization that' can actually pass legislation. In this, Obama is benefiting from certain historical trends (the collapse of conservatism, the reforms Clinton imposed on the party, the birth of online fundraising), certain accidents of history (the fact that both Daschle and Gephardt left office as Obama entered, and thus he was able to absorb an absurdly experienced organization with deep ties to Congress), and certain smart tactical decisions -- and he's taking advantage of them in a way that may, if it succeeds, prove gamechanging. The paradox of all this is that though Obama's success has been more dependent on personal charisma than that of any recent nominee, he's actually leveraging that charisma to build a broader Democratic infrastructure less dependent on the executive. Anyway, the piece is transcendent, give it a read. Meanwhile, as Dylan notes, the cover art for the piece resuscitates the human-animal hybrids George W. Bush tried to ban a few years ago. Bush may have sounded like a crank back then, but believe me, America, you'll wish you listened.
