Days before his inauguration, President Barack Obama announced that he would create an organization that would continue the grassroots framework established during his campaign.
Six months later, this organization, Virginia’s Organizing for America (OFA) chapter, made its fifth stop on a “listening tour” at the main branch of the Madison-Jefferson Regional Library.
The town hall style meeting, attended by some 50 supporters last night, focused on soliciting local opinions about the best way to foster a continuing dialogue between individual voices and the highest figures in federal politics.
Charlottesville’s OFA will soon get a full-time staff member, who will help sustain the organization’s presence in the area. Organizers emphasized building a group that can be responsive to the president’s needs at a time when “the revolution has lost its momentum … When we won the election, it felt like we had moved the mountain. But that just got us to the starting line,” they said.
The forum later shifted to health care reform. Organizers stressed the importance of active civic involvement during this month’ congressional recess.
“This is the moment our movement was built for,” Obama wrote in an e-mail to supporters on Tuesday.
“[M]embers of Congress are back home, where the hands they shake and the voices they hear will not belong to lobbyists, but to people like you.”
Four of five proposed health care bills contain public option clauses; the last bill has not been announced. Congressional leaders have said that any legislation would likely have to wait until Thanksgiving before passage.