Obama Camp Rallies Base in Red States
In the heart of Red State America, where a Democrat hasn’t been chosen for the White House in nearly four decades, Doris Crenshaw and other party activists are campaigning as though they were at ground zero in a swing state.
Crenshaw, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr., is engaged in a different struggle now: helping roust members of President Obama’s base living in otherwise Republican strongholds to do their part to help him beat Mitt Romney in the fall.
The chances are exceedingly slim that such efforts will flip a state like Alabama into the blue column come Election Day. But the work here is part of a longer term “50-state strategy” put in motion by the Democratic Party last decade. The objective is to build the party apparatus in states that have been traditionally Republican and make them eventually winnable for Democrats.
“Even though Alabama is red doesn’t mean it’s going to be red forever,” said Sebastian Wygoda, 17, one of the Obama campaign volunteers. “It takes awhile, but look at North Carolina. No one could have said eight years ago it would be a swing state.”
Toward that end, the Obama campaign is relying on volunteers and paid staff in Republican bastions — from the Deep South to the Mountain West — to make thousands of phone calls and organize dozens of trips to canvass and register voters.