What is the Obama Movement's Post-Election Game Plan?

In 2004, there was very little going on within the Democratic Party in terms of reaching out to young voters, and a lot of new blood entered the system and started up their own organizations. Very little happened within the party infrastructure (the revitalization of YDA being the exception). This outsider boom in youth organizing is the heart of what my book is about.

More and more, I don't think we'll see a similar dynamic this year. One reason is that organizations that garnered funds from wealthy donors over the past four years will continue to reap those rewards and scale up those programs, many of which the donors are invested in. The second, and equally significant reason, is that the Obama campaign is sucking up all the oxygen in youth activism this year. I don't mean that in a bad way at all. Merely that the entrepreneurial, grassroots youth activism that happened outside of the party in 2004 (particularly after the collapse of the Dean campaign), is happening inside his own youth operations this time around.

But what happens after that? What happens when Obama is no longer on the ticket - either because Clinton wins the nomination or because come November 3rd the campaign is over (or good or bad)?

When Dean lost, his army of followers created a new organization - Democracy for America - which has continued to do the work that Dean started in revitalizing local Democratic grassroots and eventually took over the party when Howard Dean was elected chairman. When the election ended in 2004, many of the youth organizations didn't quit, but carried on into the midterms and some are still with us today. They have become institutions, relevant beyond any one election. Will the Obama campaign morph similarly? Will all these new young people get fed into existing institutions such as the Young Democrats, The League, Campus Progress, Young People For, and more? Will they start their own organizations to keep Sen. Obama accountable to his campaign promises and to assist him in passing his policy proposals long into his administration?

That, I think, will be the true test of Obama's movement. Does it understand itself as such and will it create new (or join existing) institutions necessary to keep that movement alive. Or is it about an election, and will it fade as soon as its standard bearer is off the ticket? Obama's amazing online/field operation is empowering people and building an army of a campaign like nothing we've ever seen. But can that be sustained, and how can it complement or join the existing movement that is also dedicated to changing the Democratic Party?

I don't expect anyone - even the campaign - to have an answer to this yet. But it's something they (and we in the youth organizing sphere) need to be thinking about.