Ben Smith at Politico reports that OFA Wisconsin is helping organize the protesting public employees in Wisconsin:
The Democratic National Committee's Organizing for America arm -- the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign -- is playing an active role in organizing protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attempt to strip most public employees of collective bargaining rights.
Continuing:
OfA [sic], as the campaign group is known, has been criticized at times for staying out of local issues like same-sex marraige, but it's riding to the aide of the public sector unions who hoping to persuade some Republican legislators to oppose Walker's plan. And while Obama may have his difference with teachers unions, OfA's engagement with the fight -- and Obama's own clear stance against Walker -- mean that he's remaining loyal to key Democratic Party allies at what is, for them, a very dangerous moment.
OfA Wisconsin's field efforts include filling buses and building turnout for the rallies this week in Madison, organizing 15 rapid response phone banks urging supporters to call their state legislators, and working on planning and producing rallies, a Democratic Party official in Washington said.
The @OFA_WI twitter account has published 54 tweets promoting the rallies, which the group has also plugged on its blog.
If you are in Wisconsin, click HERE to see how you can get involved.
For those of us working on the ground at the grassroots level for OFA, their getting involved with local issues is a breath of fresh air. And this (along with so much else coming from the White House and the Democratic Party lately) should put to rest the absurd meme that President Obama and the Dems are corporatist sell-outs working against the better interests of workers, the poor, and the elderly. I'll have more to say about that in the near future.
Finally, in response to this diary, "Democrats Have to Pick a Side in WI & US", the answer is: THEY HAVE.
P.S., it's happening in Indiana & Ohio, too.
UPDATE: Fox News describes it somewhat differently: DNC caught organizing Wisconsin protests.
UPDATE 2: For those of you that think OFA got into the game too late, I refer you to laderrick's information in the comments:
The legislation was introduced last Friday
They had organized phonebanks that were already listed on MyBO by Sunday (and possibly earlier - that's just when I saw them first), and by Monday they had over 800 OFA folks signed up to go to the first protests on Tuesday.
I'm not sure how you figure their help was days late.
I'm just sayin'...
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Cross-posted at Eclectablog.com.