Obama Camp Will Staff All 50 States

The Barack Obama campaign will maintain a staff in each and every state, following a trend set by Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.

In a fundraising letter to supporters, Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand wrote the campaign “will be the first in a generation to deploy and maintain staff in every single state.”

“In every single state, our staff will build volunteer capacity that will provide help where we need it and impact races up and down the ballot this November,” Hildebrand said.

Dean’s 50-state strategy was first employed shortly after the former Vermont Governor took over the DNC heading into the 2006 election cycle. The costly strategy of having a minimum of four DNC-paid staffers on the ground in each state led to numerous heated conflicts with several Democratic leaders worried Dean was throwing away chances in toss-up districts in favor of uncertain future gains.

Last week the Obama campaign took over much of the DNC’s activities and promised that Dean would remain in charge of the committee.

At the time of the takeover, Obama chief strategists David Axlerod credited Dean’s 50-state strategy for creating a “larger battlefield” that would “stretch” Republicans in the 2008 election.