President Barack Obama's army of canvassers fanned out across the nation over the weekend to drum up support for his $3.55 trillion budget, but they had no noticeable impact on members of Congress, who on Monday said they were largely unaware of the effort.
"News to me," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, a House Budget Committee member, of the canvassing. Later, his staff said that his office had heard from about 100 voters.
The president's lieutenants tried to open a new front in the "Obama revolution," the grassroots mobilization that propelled the once little-known Illinois senator to the White House last year. David Plouffe, who ran Obama's campaign, now runs "Organizing for America" out of the Democratic National Committee. It uses the same Web-based tactics that won the presidency to mobilize public opinion behind Obama's initiatives in a bid to redefine "business as usual" in Washington.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
"The budget that passes Congress has the potential to take our country in a truly new direction - the kind of change we all worked so hard for," Plouffe said in an e-mail alert to Obama followers last week. He asked them to rally people in their hometowns behind Obama's budget.
Over the weekend, Obama supporters knocked on an estimated 1 million doors in all 50 states. Canvassers asked people to sign a two-point pledge saying that they support Obama's "bold approach for renewing America's economy," and that they'll ask family, friends and neighbors to back it.
"How many of these folks have read the budget?" wondered Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., a House Financial Services Committee member.
Congressional committees will start rewriting Obama's budget this week. Obama's biggest Capitol Hill problem appears to be conservative and moderate Democrats, who are challenging his fiscal 2010 budget blueprint.
Some lawmakers saw value in the canvassing.
"Anything that raises the profile of the challenges we face is very important," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., a Budget Committee member.
Trying to mobilize voters to rally behind a complex, multitrillion-dollar budget that Congress will take months to enact is a different task from winning votes for a presidential candidate.
