Loose Change

As the president negotiates the bumpy terrain of health-care reform, does team Obama risk losing momentum?

by Julia Harte

[ quagmires ]

Evan M. Lopez

Excitement was high on the second floor of Millcreek Tavern in West Philadelphia last Wednesday night, as 17 people watched President Obama deliver his much-anticipated health-care address to Congress. When Congress applauded, they cheered; when Rep. Joe Wilson interrupted the speech to call the president a liar, they broke into outraged chatter. At least one attendee, Dennis Jaffe, said the gathering had inspired him to jump into the fray himself and support Obama's health-care-reform efforts as a volunteer. It was, from the event organizers' point of view, exactly what was supposed to happen.

Organizing for America (OFA), the post-election incarnation of Obama's political machine, hired staff in Pennsylvania three months ago. Now a project of the Democratic National Committee, OFA exists to mobilize the enormous volunteer network created during the election to fight for the president's current agenda. And at the top of that agenda, of course, is health-care reform.

In the delirious aftermath of the election, the future of the mass movement that had grown around Obama for America and its Web site, barackobama.com, was uncertain. Would the millions of people who rallied to elect the president stick around to fight for his agenda?

OFA hopes so.But as some former Obama fans see the president's stance on health care shift from his pre-election promises, a new question has arisen. Will they be more loyal to their president or to their own vision for health care?

OFA has significant resources to put behind its campaign. The organization inherited e-mail addresses for 13 million Obama supporters gathered during the election. Over the summer, OFA reported, more than 1.5 million individuals wrote letters, canvassed or organized events to support Obama's health-care principles. Still, there are only so many people willing to give so much time to any cause — and while rallying people around a candidate is one thing, getting them to fight for an incredibly complex issue is another.

"I got both people who would say, 'I've been waiting for you to call, where have you been?' as well as people who were so drained from the election they didn't want to pick up another phone," recalls Temple University student Elliot Griffin, who spent the summer trying to get former Obama volunteers involved in OFA.

But OFA may have a bigger challenge than just sapped energy.

Since Obama's speech last week, criticism — non-right wing criticism, that is — of his health-care plan has grown more pointed. While the president said he still supports the so-called "public option" — a government plan for anyone uninsured —he also spoke of being "open to other ideas," a phrase many political analysts interpreted as a signal that the president is willing to concede the public option.

But what if his supporters aren't?

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"Any time anyone voices support for the public option, we tell them the president vigorously supports it," explains OFA volunteer Greg Myers, who was selected by OFA's Pennsylvania communications director to speak to City Paper. Give him the chance to have a conversation with a onetime Obama supporter, Myers says, and he'll bring them around to supporting OFA.

But this might not work with everyone. One former Philadelphia Obama organizer, who wished to remain anonymous because he is actively involved in a campaign right now, told CP that he was devoting nearly 100 hours each week to the Obama campaign in the two weeks before the election —but declined OFA's invitation to volunteer precisely because he's unhappy with the president's current stance on health care.

"It's not what he campaigned on," he says. "He campaigned on a public option being the centerpiece of a health-care bill, and that's been pushed to the side."

And he's not alone. "I have very little confidence that the final bill will include a strong public option," writes former Philadelphia Health Commissioner Walter Tsou in an e-mail. "Each week it gets weaker and weaker. Why is that, since the majority of Americans want a public option?"

Sentiments like these might make OFA's work trickier. So far, they've been able to work within large coalitions like Health Care for America Now, which comprises over 1,000 organizations and advocates strongly for a public option. Asked if the coalition would continue to work with OFA if the president withdraws his support for the measure, HCAN spokeswoman Jacki Schechner says, "We don't discuss that question because we don't anticipate it's going to be dropped."

But health-care experts and pundits alike suggest otherwise. And OFA's ultimate loyalty is to the president's agenda — whatever it turns out to be.

"I take him at his word when he says that he is not going to implement a program that is not going to be beneficial for all Americans," said OFA volunteer Amirah Naim. "I'm an Obama Democrat."

(julia.harte@citypaper.net)