Team Obama looks for head-start over fluid GOP field

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

A survey of the political landscape more than a year out from the 2012 presidential election reveals a tale of diametrically opposed campaigns between that of an entrenched incumbent and early-stage challengers.
An army of Democratic volunteers -- armed with smart phones -- has been dispatched as part of a flourishing grass-roots network on behalf of President Obama while Republicans are just laying the groundwork for their campaigns with small clusters of workers in early primary states, such as Iowa and New Hampshire.

Team Obama is banking that such early outreach will give the president a head start over the eventual Republican nominee, who will have had to spend months winning party primaries before focusing more on the national landscape.

"2011 is about infrastructure," one Obama senior campaign official told The Washington Examiner. "We're not entering the campaign with a database. Obama for America has served as an active organization in states across the country over the previous two years with supporters in communities across the country talking to their networks about the president's vision. Many volunteers are re-engaging with our organizers as the campaign gets underway."

But campaign aides also acknowledge this sobering reality: It won't be as easy as 2008.

Obama rode a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the economy into a comfortable victory over Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. This time around he'll be running into economic headwinds, forced to defend his policies amid a 9 percent unemployment rate likely to even out the electoral map in the wake of historic Democratic pickups in 2008.