politico: Obama's massive, smoothly integrated volunteer organization has been a mainstay of his campaign. It has been central to his success in caucus states such as Minnesota and Idaho, where a volunteer army - organized online - preceded and noticeably bolstered his staff's organizing efforts, helping to build the huge victory margins that have made him the frontrunner.
His voter registration efforts have drawn far less attention. But they were there from the start. When Obama toured Iowa last February in his first campaign swing, his campaign brought along voter registration cards. As the race there heated up, voter registration became a quiet focus, with registration drives in colleges and even high schools that helped drive Obama's victory.
South Carolina, Hildebrand said, was the site of another intensive effort. "A great case study for voter registration was the South Carolina primary, where we dramatically expanded the African-American vote and dramatically expanded the youth vote," he said. "It was such a big part of getting us to that 28-point margin of victory."
Another high-stakes voter registration drive just concluded in Pennsylvania, where the deadline to register as a Democrat and participate in the primary was March 24. The Pennsylvania Department of State reports that more than 234,000 voters have either newly registered as Democrats or switched from other parties, and the state hasn't finished counting the new registrations.
part of that effort will be obama's organizing fellows:
This summer we are looking for students or recent graduates who want to be a part of a new generation of leadership that believes, like Senator Obama, that real change comes from the ground up.
Fellows will be trained on the basics of organizing & campaign fundamentals and then placed in a community to carryout grassroots activities. Program participation will start on June 5 through the end of the summer. Fellows will be asked to commit to a minimum of 30 hours per week.
