Street Money

This story about Barack Obama refusing to give out "walking around money" to ward leaders in Philadelphia misses the point. There's all of this fist-clenching over whether Obama's refusal to dispense the street money is going to hurt his campaign without a recognition that this Presidential primary is big enough that Obama's campaign is not relying on the internal Philly machine to get out the vote. In fact, in a high-information primary like this such a strategy would never work. I don't think pressure from a ward leader would get a significant amount of Philadelphians out to vote for a preferred candidate; the turnout will be high so there won't be a lot of stragglers to find, anyway. Ward leaders didn't elect Bob Brady, who runs the entire city, against Michael Nutter in the mayoral primary. This is a 20th-century model on 21st-century politics, and making this into some kind of make-or-break decision for the Obama campaign is silly. The article even mentions Brady:

Before the 2002 state elections, a reporter watched two practitioners of the street-money arts in action: Campbell and U.S. Rep. Robert A. Brady, a ward leader and chair of Philadelphia's Democratic committee.

Brady was sitting in his campaign office with two of his political lieutenants. He reached into a desk drawer at one point and pulled out a $50 bill -- street money. Brady tore it in two and gave each man a half. Then the men made a bet: Whoever pulled in the most Democratic votes that day from his precincts would get both halves.

I would have thought it'd be notable to mention that Brady got 15% of the primary vote in 2007, in a local election you'd think would be tailor-made for the dispensation of street money. Don't act like 2008 Philly is like a scene out of "Gangs of New York." It's not.

Also, it's not like Obama isn't going to spend any money on GOTV otherwise. There are plenty of paid staffers that he's brought in, as well as robocalls and direct mail and vans to get people to the polls. The article makes it into a holier-than-thou kind of situation when he probably just wants to control his money and his message. What's wrong with that?