Organizing for Action acting to avoid organizing over #Syria.

By Moe Lane | 7:00 PM on September 05, 2013

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The awkward position in which progressive allies of President Barack Obama find themselves can be seen clearly in the actions of his former political arm, now called Organizing for Action, which despite the need for activists to lobby Congress to support the president’s call for military strikes, is essentially voting “present.”

Capitol Hill is all but singularly focused on Obama’s push for congressional authorization to use force in Syria, and the president has canceled a trip to California next week to devote his time and energy to lobbying lawmakers.

But in his weekly call with grassroots supporters, held this week on Tuesday, the executive director of OFA, Jon Carson, said of Syria, “OFA isn’t planning to actively organize on this with so much going on on other issues.”

OfA is not… exactly what most people think that it is. The common perception is that it’s there to push Democratic policies, or liberal ideological positions, or something similar. In reality, it’s there specifically for Barack Obama’s self-aggrandizement. This got obscured in 2012, when Barack Obama’s self-aggrandizement was inextricably linked with his need to be re-elected; but it’s no longer 2012. They have new priorities now, which more or less begins and ends with the need to have an up-to-date mailing list of people who can reliably counted onto give Barack Obama money. The fellow is going to be out of office in about three and a half years by now, after all.

So, to put it bluntly? The last thing that Barack Obama wants to do right now is remind his once and future cash cows that he’s planning to unilaterally bomb Syria. Some of them might get upset; worse, some of them might close their wallets.

A man’s got to have his priorities, right?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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