D.C. Party Is Resistant To Audacity Of Change

"We will be able to mobilize aspects of the Obama team," Hutchinson said. "What it's going to take is face-to-face contact on a grass-roots level."

That's something Jehan Gordon, 26, a candidate for Illinois state representative out of Peoria, knows a lot about. In the Democratic primary in the spring, Gordon, a graduate of Obama's leadership camp, eked out a victory over Allen Mayer, Peoria's party secretary, in a campaign that turned nasty.

Though Gordon had initially been recruited by local party leaders, Mayer jumped in against her when the Republican incumbent dropped out to seek higher office. "It's something that was an obvious distinction that people tried to draw," Gordon said of her youth and inexperience. But, she added, her grass-roots organizing efforts "overpowered this whole age thing."

In Virginia and Maryland, newcomers are entering the party in strong numbers, but party leaders have said they're generally being welcomed and counted on to turn out the vote, particularly in the commonwealth, a battleground state in the general election.

Kahlill Palmer and his friends from D.C. For Obama hope to capitalize on their grass-root experience as Gordon has done in Peoria.

The D.C. Democratic State Committee, with 79 elected members, is responsible for growing the party through voter outreach and registration, lobbying for D.C. voting rights in Congress and selecting delegates for the national convention every four years. But the group has struggled to remain relevant in a city where 90 percent of the electorate is Democratic and there is no rival party to reckon with.

Palmer and his colleagues talk of turning the organization into a more activist group, including road trips to other states to help on Democratic campaigns and using technology to improve outreach to younger party members. They envision streaming video of state committee meetings on the Web so people can watch from home, as a way to increase interest.

"There needs to be more people with creative minds, more youth and more people brought into the party," said Kim Morton, 31, head of D.C. For Obama, who grew up in St. Louis and has lived in the District less than a year. She helped recruit Palmer for the slate, which is called Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain.

"It seems like everybody on the state committee has been there for years," Morton said.

Almost as soon as the new slate was formed -- it has 48 members -- the backlash began. Rival slates were formed with current insiders. At a state committee meeting in the spring, two newcomers, Miriam Sapiro and Linda Nguyen, lost in their bid for seats to this month's convention, falling to D.C. Council members Harry Thomas (Ward 5) and Yvette Alexander (Ward 7).

Tom Smith, 55, head of the Ward 3 Democrats in Northwest who initially supported Clinton but now backs Obama, has spoken out against Palmer's slate and endorsed a rival. At a recent gathering of about 15 ward party leaders at his house, over champagne and hors d'oeuvres, Smith gave a toast thanking his colleagues for their hard work, then added that he was disappointed about the growing divide inside the party.

"I don't know these folks," Smith said in an interview. "I've heard many stories about the wonderful work they did in the Obama campaign outside the city. But if you want to represent ward Democratic voters on the state committee you have the responsibility to be engaged on the grass-roots political process on the ward level."