Obama puts own stamp on party.
Barack Obama has hit the ground running as the Democratic presidential nominee by having a secret meeting with Hillary Clinton and also immediately insisting to the central party that they will, in future, abide by the same rules on accepting money from lobbyists as his own campaign.
The meeting with Hillary appears to have been designed to get her to back off from her public stance that she wants to be his Vice President, certainly that's the impression one gets from the noises now emanating from Hillary.
On Tuesday Mrs Clinton said she would be "open" to the idea of being Mr Obama's running mate.
But a statement from the Clinton campaign on Thursday said: "While Senator Clinton has made clear throughout this process that she will do whatever she can to elect a Democrat to the White House, she is not seeking the vice presidency."
It adds: "The choice here is Senator Obama's and his alone."
So the message has certainly been received by Hillary, this is now Barack Obama's party and not the party of the Clinton's. And he also laid down the rulebook for the party itself.
Obama has already established the best campaign funding machine in the history of political fundraising, by asking what is being reported as over 1.25 million people to donate small amounts. A staggering 94% of the money Obama raised was from donations of less than $200.Under the new rules, the Democratic National Committee, which raises central funds for the presidential campaign, will take on board Obama's existing ban on donations from lobbyists who do business with the government as well as from political action committees - private interest groups set up to raise money in order to influence the outcome of elections.
Apart from highlighting Obama's determination to be a decisive party leader, the imposition of tighter funding rules allows him a clear line of attack against his opponent, John McCain. The Republican has been beset with troubles over lobbying, despite his reputation as a scourge of special interests having initiated legislation in 2002 to clean up political campaign finance. McCain's advisers are prominent lobbyists. The senator for Arizona was forced to dismiss several after his campaign was criticised for employing two aides from a firm that has worked on behalf of the Burmese regime.
The other in-built benefit of moving quickly on campaign funding is that it will cost Obama very little. He has already established a phenomenal money-raising machine, largely through small donations achieved through the internet.
The Obama campaign has raised $272m (£136m).
This is what gave him the financial clout to take on the Clinton campaign machine, tied - as it was - to traditional means of raising finance; which usually meant going to large donors with one's cap in one's hand.
Obama has changed the process for ever and I feel sure that all future campaigns will study what he has done and emulate it.
He has cut the lobbyists out of the picture - and removed their influence from his administration - by putting the electorate in charge of financing his campaign, and by insisting, that to be an Obama supporter, it is not enough to have his bumper sticker on your car, you must actually do something; donate money, make phone calls, volunteer. It is this insistence that people get involved which has energised the young voters who have flocked to his campaign, the feeling that they are not passive witnesses to history but that they are actually it's players. They have an active role in bringing about change.
Obama already has an astonishing 750,000 people willing to volunteer for him between now an election day. That's an astonishing change in the democratic process all by itself.
This is why people like McCain and Clinton were so wrong when they dismissed this guy as someone trading in "just words". It showed their utter naivety at what Obama was actually doing. He's not kidding when he talks of a new kind of politics, and nothing is more indicative of this than his means of raising campaign funds and his way of actively involving the electorate in the process. Nay, his demanding that they actively become involved. One of his campaign tricks has been to ask the audience to hold up their mobile phones and to punch in a five digit text number sending their contact details to the Obama campaign team. Then, with people already hyped up from having seen him in person, his campaign team quickly contact these people and ask them to actively become involved.
This is all part of Obama's way of energising and changing the political landscape.
McCain doesn't know what he's up against. He is facing a tornado which I feel certain is going to blow him away.
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