More details on Camp Obama

Camp Obama is training a number of Illinois elected officials with name recognition in neighboring Iowa to campaign for the senator there.

Illinois officials who will campaign for Barack Obama in Iowa. From left to right, top to bottom, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn; Secretary of State Jesse White, who is also on the board; Attorney General Lisa Madigan; Comptroller Dan Hynes; and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)

According to Lynn Sweet's blog, Camp Obama will focus on the following:

• Organizing sister city programs. One getting off the ground is between Illinois communities and Iowa. For example, Obama backers who live in Evanston or the Lake View neighborhood on the North Side would be assigned precincts to get to know in Cedar Rapids.

• Training volunteers to canvass voters -- which means shoe-leather door knocking to find out whom a registered voter supports, leans toward, or wants to know more about.

Obama canvassers will be fanning out across the country. The idea is not to have strangers making calls and house visits but to use all the social networking tools available to make real people-to-people sustained connections.

• Building networks for low-dollar fund-raising.

• Opening an office in the Loop where volunteers can come, work and just hang out.

• Creating Camp Obama. No, there's not going to be cabins with bunks. But it will be in Chicago. Camp Obama is a training program -- run by campaign professionals -- being launched by the campaign. People who do well in the four-day training will be put in the pipeline for internships and paid jobs. Training topics will include canvassing, phone banking and recruiting volunteers. Camp Obama applications can be found at www.barackobama.com.