This will be a real key decision for me - and Obama is gonna have to work damn hard to cinvince me that this office is in any way, shape, or form a matter of importance for the american people!

Obama faces test on WH political office
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 11/13/08 4:28 AM EST


CHICAGO — It was a standard applause line on the campaign trail: Barack Obama condemned the “perpetual campaign” that has consumed Washington, contending that the slash-and-burn politics practiced by the Bush White House had gotten in the way of governing.

But President-elect Obama has been virtually silent on bipartisan calls in recent months to eliminate the White House office that has been described as the nerve center of the sprawling political operations headed up by Bush adviser Karl Rove. And the fate of that office will be just one of the questions Obama will have to answer in explaining how his mammoth and skilled campaign operation can be transformed into an administration that traffics in a different kind of politics at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

John McCain pledged in September to abolish the White House Office of Political Affairs as president. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) followed up with a report last month recommending its elimination. And Craig Holman, a lobbyist with the government watchdog group Public Citizen, said Wednesday that it “must be dismantled.”

“I would be startled if he kept it and I would be very critical of an Obama administration that kept a political office,” Holman said. “I could not imagine this office being structured in a way that would be in the public’s interest.”

Transition aides declined to comment Wednesday on Obama’s plans for the office.

But the president-elect has given no indication that he will eliminate the political shop, which has detractors and defenders in both parties. When McCain told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he would move the political operations into the Republican National Committee, saying “we’ve gotta have a White House that is without politics,” the Obama campaign declined to agree with McCain’s suggestion.

Obama’s decision on the political office is an early test of how sharply the president-elect plans to turn away from the practices of his predecessor. The Republican National Committee has spent the last week counting the ways in which it sees Obama sending mixed messages on his commitment to end the so-called permanent campaign in Washington.

Republicans point to two early hires, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and David Axelrod as a senior advisor. Emanuel, while praised by some for outreach to Republicans, was an architect of the Democratic House takeover in 2006 and has never been mistaken for a shrinking violet when it comes to partisan rhetoric.

Axelrod served as a mastermind behind Obama’s four-year rise from Illinois state senator to president-elect, prompting some Republicans to compare him with Rove when it comes to the influence both enjoyed with newly elected presidents.

Obama is still deciding what to do with the campaign’s list of 3 million contributors and 10 million supporters, who gave email addresses, donated money or participated in social networking tools on Obama’s website.

The network could be harnessed as a grassroots lobbying force that powers Obama’s policy ideas in the same way it propelled his candidacy past establishment figures from both parties. Technology experts say Obama could roll the list into a freestanding political organization with an eye on the 2012 election or hand it over to the Democratic National Committee.

At the same time, the transition operation is collecting email addresses through its website, change.gov, giving the president-elect the potential to go directly to his base to mobilize support. The new site is already generating traffic comparable to the campaign site, underscoring Obama’s ability to transfer his popularity around the web, former Blue State Digital Strategist Kevin Thurman wrote Tuesday on TechPresident.com

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