Four years ago, I was heavily involved in the Obama campaign in Philadelphia as a volunteer. I registered a lot of people to vote. And I was a slacker compared to many of the people who volunteered with me. I was just one set of hands among thousands in Philly. Even more impressive were the field organizers who were often in their first (woefully-underpaid) campaign job and who were inspiring, smart, and seemingly indefatigable.
This year, every single person I volunteered with last time did it again. And the junior field organizers from last time were now senior people. How many tens or hundreds of thousands of people across the country are now veteran Democratic operatives? These people all have experience in both winning ('08 and '12) and losing ('10) cycles. They know how it works. Some of them will go on to run for office themselves. All of them will probably be involved in political activism for life and will bring up their families in the same tradition.
If I were a Republican, that would scare me a lot more than demographics.
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