Ace Smith, Clinton's state campaign director, said they intended to piggyback the Clinton organization on supporters' families and friendships.
"Most of our supporters have these big social networks," he said. "Why build something? Why not take advantage of something that exists already?"
Marshall Ganz, who began his organizing career in the civil rights era and is now helping the Obama campaign create its grass-roots structure, also believes the effort must be built person-to-person.
The campaign has begun a series of intensive "Camp Obama" weekend courses in which professional organizers like Ganz teach the novices how it's done, then send them home to build their own Obama organizations that report to, but are not controlled by, Obama staffers.
In Palo Alto, one of the trained volunteers' first tasks is to contact the more than 400 people in the district who have told the campaign they want to help. They, in turn, will be the core of the volunteer group to contact 180,000 voters in hopes of finding more volunteers and cementing 45,000 votes for Obama -- which the congressional district committee independently set as its goal.
Ganz hopes the strategy will return a sense of social movement to campaigns, offsetting the modern-marketing approach. "It goes back to the problem of money in politics and the way politics has been so commercialized," Ganz said. "Because of those factors, people don't do the kind of organizing they used to do in politics. I think that's changing. Close elections encourage more organizing."
As do tumultuous times. At the Clinton session, about half of the attendees had never volunteered to work on a presidential campaign before. At the Obama session, the proportion was even higher -- 17 of 24 said they were novices. The Clinton and Obama groups also represented different demographics. Fewer than a third of those at the Clinton meeting were men; at the Obama session, men accounted for just over half.
"I didn't think ever in my life I would see a viable female candidate for president," said Judy Sweeney, 62, of Menlo Park, adding that she had been appalled by what she described as "disgusting . . . lies" over the last seven years of the Bush presidency. "She's got what it takes to turn this country around."
Most Clinton volunteers cited specific issues -- healthcare, abortion, the Iraq war, a woman in the Oval Office -- as reasons they supported her. At the Obama session, the talk was more ethereal, about the desire to effect changes in policy and political engagement. Several cited Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech.
"This could be part of something bigger," volunteer organizer Peter Garcia said as he gave an overview of the 14th District committee's plans. "We have support from the campaign. But this is about our change."
scott.martelle@latimes.com
