How Jennifer O'Malley Dillon transformed Joe Biden's campaign

[RandySF]

Inside Democratic circles, O’Malley Dillon has long been known for her discipline, organizational skills and strategic sense. She ran the battleground-states operation for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential effort and was deputy manager of his 2012 reelection campaign. Her twins were born a week after Election Day.

Biden presents a challenge of a different magnitude than any of her earlier endeavors. The Democratic primary had been a near-death experience for him. It looked as though the nomination was slipping from his grasp until, suddenly, thanks to South Carolina Rep. James E. Clyburn’s endorsement, it wasn’t. His campaign had to quickly transform itself from a shoestring operation into a juggernaut, against an incumbent president with seemingly bottomless financial resources.

Bringing in someone new in the midst of a campaign is always difficult; it looked to be particularly so for Biden, who for decades had been surrounded by the same tightknit clique of advisers, who in turn had long given up on keeping their boss on message. Lines of authority were tangled. There was more kibbitzing than decision-making. They were running out of money. Everyone agreed that the campaign needed to transform itself for the general election.

And this instant reinvention had to take place in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic in which many of the traditional tools of organizing and mobilization had to be jettisoned, because they have become flat-out dangerous to campaign workers and voters themselves.
Some political operatives elbow their way into the position, bruising egos along the way; O’Malley Dillon had to be cajoled. In early 2019, while the former vice president was still dithering over whether to run, she signed on to manage the short-lived campaign of former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke. Having already uprooted her family to move to El Paso, O’Malley Dillon was reluctant to do it again.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-jennifer-omalley-dillon-transformed-joe-bidens-campaign/2020/08/14/d49de192-dbdd-11ea-8051-d5f887d73381_story.html

[Demsrule86]

1. Really good article...This is the best run campaign I have seen since President Obama's

When O'Malley came on board, those of us who worked 08 and 12 for Obama were thrilled. She is the best.