Message War ramps up, white house in charge

Two Politico pieces written today and over the weekend, as well as a Chris Cilizza article in the Washington Post all cover a story that has been developing over the past week. (By the way, each of these stories is worth a read.)
The White House, as well as the grassroots Democratic apparatus, are beginning to bring their biggest guns to bear on Republican opposition: The 13 million strong volunteer/donor e-mail list once owned by the Obama campaign and now under the umbrella of the Democratic National Committee under the name "Organizing For America" will now be fully mobilized to defend the President's budget proposals and spending plans in the face of a media war with the GOP that some say Democrats have been losing.
The stimulus package and the omnibus spending bills passed by congress were largely targeted by the media for their wasteful spending and many on the left feel that too many concessions were made to Republicans who nearly unanimously voted against them anyway.
Despite Obama railing against the idea of the "permanent campaign" ran by George W. Bush while in office, it seems he's not above a little himself and his administration, as well as the machinery of the Democratic Party, seem to relish getting back into campaign mode, dividing once again into partisan trench warfare and launching salvos at the other side.
According to one of the Politico articles:
"'One of the things that progressives did when we were in the wilderness,” Democratic guru Paul Begala said, 'was build up a new infrastructure — think tanks, activist groups, PR machines — all of which are tuned up and ready to run. ... Add to that this dominant, remarkable new president, and you’ve got a force that progressives have not had since LBJ or maybe FDR.'
But Begala warned against attributing every move on the Democratic side of the chessboard as evidence of a White House grand design. “We’re now like a team that’s been playing basketball for a number of years: We can do no-look passes,” he said. 'There’s a lot of things that people ascribe to careful planning that are actually not.' In part, it reflects a mind-set among Obama and other Democrats that their best defense is a very aggressive offense."
I think the Obama administration, as well as Democrats in general, were caught by surprise as to how hard-nosed and dogged the Republican opposition was, especially this early in the administration, but Republicans had a choice to make, and politically it may have been risky, but it was the only one that could possibly lead to future rewards for their party.