Sifry on Obama and Grassroots Politics

A noteworthy article at TechPresident:

The truth is that Obama was never nearly as free of dependence on big money donors as the reporting suggested, nor was his movement as bottom-up or people-centric as his marketing implied. And this is the big story of 2009, if you ask me, the meta-story of what did, and didn't happen, in the first year of Obama's administration. The people who voted for him weren't organized in any kind of new or powerful way, and the special interests--banks, energy companies, health interests, car-makers, the military-industrial complex--sat first at the table and wrote the menu. Myth met reality, and came up wanting

These observations square with our analysis in Epic Journey.  For more on campaign finance, see Michael Malbin's working paper.  And a CQ article has more on the enthusiasm gap.