Power

Obama's Army Reporting For Duty

“What do you want me to do next?” asks one.

Over the course of 21 months of campaigning, Barack Obama assembled a roster of millions of devotees. The question now is: How can he harness their enthusiasm for his presidency? It won’t take much, writes Frank Greve in McClatchy. “Certainly, Obama reaches the White House with the biggest, best organized, fastest-acting grass-roots army in the history of presidential campaigning,” he asserts, and quotes one volunteer from the campaign (a 37-year-old mother of three) as saying, “I’m going to be sitting at the phone, asking, ‘What do you want me to do? I’m ready.’” But will this army of supporters stage a coup and devolve into factions of special interests? “How Obama will use his ardent laptop-armed cadres is unclear. So is the extent to which they'll rally behind his priorities, press him for their own or both.”