It's not the money; it's the bodies

I can give you a bit of a view from inside the Obama campaign, and it was more than the sum of it's parts. The design, from the web based activation level, to the local campaign offices, was precisely designed to bring people into the activity level, and give them easy tools to become active. The campaign also did not rely on any existing party infrastructure. the Obama campaign office may have coordinated, cooperated, and had a generally positive relationship with existing party infrastructure, but they operated completely independently. This makes real the statement above about the grassroots changing the party, as opposed to party changing itself. The Obama campaign did this pretty much without the Democratic Party, and far from being beholden to the party, the party is now beholden to Obama.

I also wanted to pointed out something about negative campaigning that happened among the e-mail listers that I know, and this is borne out by the campaign contributions and the dates they spiked. We all know that negative campaigning works, but I think there is a new paradigm. When the McCain campaign would put out a particularly egregious ad, or Sarah Palin would make a particularly false or misleading statement about Obama, the Obama campaign would immediately send out an e-mail, and it worked brilliantly. When Obama supporters were most incensed about the tactics of the Republicans, they would be given an immediate opportunity to take some action, in the form of donations (or volunteering, or both). So the effect of negative campaigning may have hurt Obama somewhat, but also infused his campaign with cash. When you compare the two campaigns, we all know that Obama actually put a greater number of negative ads on the air, but they were kept fairly tame, preventing very harsh cashbacklash (my new term) and there was no place for upset McCain supporters to really go with this. I was on the McCain e-mail list, and from a "call to action" perspective, including timing to specific events, the whole thing paled in comparison.

No one likes negative campaigns, but since they worked so well, no one could find any way to get away from them. In the future, there is going to have to be a calculation of how much cash you'll be giving your opponent when you go particularly negative. And swing voters seem to be driven away by exceedingly harsh negative ads.

The only problem with the whole of this discussion is that it really does not empower the grassroots, it empowers the man (or woman) they get behind. Whatever ideas people had about Obama, he's going to do what he is going to do, and it's not a question of whether he meets the ideological expectations of the grassroots, only that he is successful or unssuccessful. If he is considered successful and is 180 degrees from some of his supporters, they won't abandon him, and if he fails, it won't matter if he did exactly what they wanted and expected, they will still abandon him... at least enough to make him lose in 4 years.

By the same token, the best aspect of this kind of campaign, is that using this method really does allow a new President freedom from the kind of quid-pro-quo that a reliance on large donors, bundlers, and PACs place on a new President.

All that said, I don't think Republicans can do it. The activist base of the Republican party is primarily the SoCons, and I've  been subject to their style of campaigning, and while effective at efforts to GOTV for the base, they are not terribly good at working the middle. In my case, one McCain volunteer tried to remind me that Obama is pro-abortion, and I mentioned that while I abhor the practice, I can't bring myself to support making my opinion on the issue into federal law. At which point the tent got very, very, small and volunteer basically said that if I don't support McCain, I am supporting murder. I told him that was a great way of putting it, and that he should say that to every swing voter he can find. At least until one of them knocks his teeth out.  I know there are intolerant lefties out there as well, but I think it's a much bigger problem for righties.

"the media is so unbelievably biased its a wonder that a Republican ever wins an election."

And yet, Republicans DO win elections, and they win because although the media is biased, it is not partisan. I say this because the media always treats one side more favorably than the other, but it's Republicans who get favor as often as Democrats.

The biased media meme is a campaign tactic, it's not meant to be believed by serious trying to address serious policy and messaging issues, because it's not true.

Did you know that GWB has TWICE the number of favorable stories that Al Gore had in the lead up to 2000 election? It was media bias, but again, not partisan media bias, because the same media gave Obama far fewer negative stories than McCain in this election cycle.

Some times the narrative just runs against your guy, but quit whining.