Dems Build Ohio Firewall

Since Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) Buckeye State bummer in the '04 pres. election against Pres. Bush, the Ohio Democratic Party (ODP) has gone on steroids.

After building an aggressive organization for the '06 midterms that continued into the '08 pres. election, the state party continued to grow and has ballooned into the largest Dem organization in the country, behind only the DNC and DCCC. Now approaching 70 staffers on its payroll, the ODP has 15 regional field directors spread out over the state's 88 counties and plans to double that by the end of March. Late last year, the party moved its headquarters from an old building across from the state Capitol to a bigger, newer facility several blocks away to house its expansive staff and new technology.

Said ODP executive director Doug Kelly, "By keeping Ohio Democratic in 2010, Ohio will be the firewall for Pres. Obama's re-election in 2012..."

...To keep its momentum rolling, the ODP has been deploying staffers all across the state for a road show known as the "Knockout" program. The program aims to "knockout the Republicans for the next decade [by] motivating activists to get involved early and often." They've given 9 presentations on the ODP's "strategic blueprint" in the last few months and reached more than 2,000 activists, including, they note, 236 people in Akron. That's "twice the crowd that VP-candidate Joe Biden got at the same union hall in September 2008," according to an ODP staffer.

The ODP plans to hold these "Knockout" events in all 88 counties, and in doing so, they're lengthening their volunteer list. What's more, ODP field staffers say they're supplying those volunteers with access to some of their best data to make them most effective now...

...Most operatives, including Kelly - one of the most experience Dem EDs in the country ... credit Gov. Ted Strickland (D) with pressing the party apparatus to keep active and expand after Election Day in '06...

...And on his watch, the party's fundraising hit an all-time off-year high in 2009, when most political funraising had been hit hard by the economy, by raising $7.3M.

"We have a track record now with this model from 2006 and 2008. We have a network of mid- to high-level donors who are investing early," Kelly said of the record fundraising year. He added, "People see this as an investment and want to get in early, because we did what we said we were going to do. We're also aggressively expanding our low- to mid-level donor networks, because they all know 2010 will be tough."

Kelly pointed out that the last 2 cycles were easier because voters were tired of the GOP and Dems were just coming to power. "2010 gives us a chance to really prove the model under adverse circumstances," he said.

Even with a politically potent climate for Dems in '08, Kelly explained that the "model" has a top-to-bottom focus for "winning at all levels." He cites 2 statistics as evidence of the early investment and heavy, round-the-clock staffing: Dems won the state House of Representatives by 3,861 votes out of more than 5 million cast, and they won 19 of 20 targeted races by less than 1K votes on Election Day.

"That's not through luck. That's having a smart, aggressive program in the field working through the year. This has to be built over time, not overnight," he said.

Read the full article here.