Obama's grass-roots network is put to the test

WASHINGTON — To win the White House, Barack Obama and his political team built a vast grass-roots network of supporters and volunteers that came to be considered one of the most valuable assets in American politics. Their ambition after the election was to reshape the network, with its trained organizers and 13 million e-mail addresses, into a ground-level force to push the new president's policy goals.

But now, entering a crucial congressional recess month in which Obama's healthcare plan faces stiffened opposition, some members of the network say that the group is still figuring out how to operate. Some also say their work has been slowed by tensions over tactics, disenchantment among some core supporters and an effective GOP resistance.

In Farmington, Mo., Obama backer Craig Hartel wonders why the movement has balked at pressuring centrist Democrats who are wavering on whether to support a public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers.

In Chester, Va., Beth Kimbriel often volunteers 40 hours a week to persuade locals to support Obama. But with critics of the healthcare plan so prominently grabbing headlines and spreading what she calls misinformation, Kimbriel finds that "it's difficult to be believed" when she lays out the president's position.

And in Cary, N.C., Murray Silverstone, inspired by the election and eager to pitch in on the healthcare fight, wonders why staffers didn't arrive in his area and begin trying to reconstruct the campaign system until five weeks ago.

"It wasn't clear to us why there was such a delay," said Silverstone, an astronomer who fits in volunteer work amid his research and college teaching.

The early challenges faced by the network, Organizing for America, present problems for the president and his ambitions for overhauling healthcare policy.

With public skepticism rising over Obama's plan, which is still being worked out with Congress, Democrats were hoping that the August recess would provide a chance to explain the complex and, in some cases, fear-inducing legislation to a nervous public. But Republicans, talk radio and conservative advocacy groups have seized the moment, drowning out that opportunity through a campaign to disrupt Democratic town hall meetings.