Saw this interesting tweet by HuffPo's Sam Stein, regarding the OFA conference call that just ended and that officially marks the end of this historic election:
On first read, you might misinterpret this as a greedy legacy move, or as one that hampers the Dem platform unnecessarily. You might even interpret it as a less nefarious referendum on respect: people signed up for Obama, not necessarily for the Dem Party at large or for whoever Obama's successor may be.
However, there's further nuance here: Plouffe is actually saying that in order for a candidate to replicate the kind of campaign (and success) Team Obama carried out these past two elections, that candidate has to have her or his own grassroots movement, built from the ground up and garnered from individuals that have specifically "bought in" to that candidate's platform, message, and campaign. Whatever some may say about this decision or its motivations or implications ("way to put party first, boys"), it's refreshing to see that Plouffe intrinsically "gets" it: ownership of support can't be transferred from one brand to another, as Stein goes on to quote in another tweet attributed to Plouffe: "You just can't transfer something like this. People are not going to [spend time and money] unless they believe in the candidate".
Excellent.
P.S. You may find these articles fascinating:
Inside the Obama Campaign's Hard Drive <-- a month old but ever more fascinating in light of the second link below
Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win
How a Race in the Balance Went to Obama <-- "meh" title but a really great piece of reportage