WASHINGTON — Throngs of campaign volunteers and staff members gathered Sunday at a Washington hotel on the eve of President Barack Obama’s public inauguration for a conference that served as both reunion and planning session for the next four years.
Meanwhile, White House senior adviser David Plouffe made the rounds on Sunday talk shows, outlining the president’s agenda for the months ahead.
Recounting the success of the 2012 campaign, campaign officials vowed to use a new nonprofit called Organizing for Action to marshal support behind Obama’s legislative agenda. The arrangement is unprecedented for a sitting president - essentially transforming his re-election campaign into a nonprofit organization to back up his efforts in Congress.
“We know it is time to reform our broken immigration system, and we will get it done this year,” said Jon Carson, a former White House official who will serve as the organization’s executive director. “We are going to take it to them on reducing gun violence, on climate change. And we are going to take this network and finish some jobs that we started,” he said, pointing to the sweeping health-care law Obama signed.
The conference, which took place as Obama was sworn into another term in a private ceremony at the White House, was the first gathering of activists who will form the backbone of the nonprofit. The organization will be funded by grass-roots donors and corporate money and function separately from the Democratic National Committee, the party’s political arm.
For many volunteers and staff members, the conference and inaugural festivities also offered a chance to trade war stories and bask in the glow of Obama’s re-election. Campaign manager Jim Messina walked onstage to a standing ovation, declaring to the faithful: “I see winners!”
Volunteers were asked to form local chapters of the group and take the organizing skills and technological know-how they learned from the campaign to support Obama’s second term.Carson said the organization planned to make its mark quickly, previewing the fight over gun control in the aftermath of last month’s deadly school shooting in Connecticut.
“There are dozens of districts in this country where Republicans have no business being proud of the fact that they’re endorsed by the [National Rifle Association]. And we will go to those districts, and we will run ads, and we will be on their Facebook pages,” he said.
Plouffe said Obama will focus on improving the economy, saying the president believes the best way to do that is to invest in education and manufacturing while also seeking what he called “balanced deficit reduction.”
Beyond the economy and the budget, Plouffe indicated that two social issues will be a focus at the outset of the president’s second term: immigration and gun control.
On gun control, he mixed statements of optimism with an acknowledgment of political realities. Republicans control the House, and even some Democrats in the Senate have been extremely cautious in addressing the issue.
“It’s going to be very, very hard,” Plouffe said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming underscored that point. He said he doubts supporters could get 60 votes in the Senate for legislation to allow universal background checks for gun purchases and for limiting gun magazines to 10 rounds or fewer.
“The debt and spending. That’s where people are focused. That’s the big anxiety of this country,” Barrasso said on CNN.
When it comes to overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, Plouffe said he believes there’s broader support from Republicans nationally than there is from Republicans in Congress. Still, “the stars are aligned” for a bill to include beefedup border security as well as giving a path to citizenship to those already in the U.S. illegally. He cited business organizations and religious leaders as key players backing a comprehensive immigration bill.
Information for this article was contributed by Kevin Freking of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 01/21/2013