Professionalizing Amateurs

From The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2005:

To overcome opposition to his program, Mr. Bush will turn to the same hard-charging machine that helped him win re-election. Republicans plan to stage what amounts to a permanent grassroots campaign....

It will be a broad and hi-tech effort aimed at lawmakers from both parties. The centerpiece will be Bush himself....

Republicans are trying to organize activists who were mobilized for the 2004 presidential campaign into a standing political army. Its ranks potentially include 1.4 million volunteers and 7.5 million "e-activists" linked to the Bush team by campaign e-mail lists. They will be urged to call radio talk shows, write to newspapers and contact their elected representatives. In return, activists can earn points, in a system akin to a frequent flier program, which can be used to buy gear from the Republican National Committee.

From Wikipedia:

Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks during the First Russian Revolution and first ruler of the Soviet Union, created the concept of the "vanguard of the proletariat." He believed that a successful Communist revolution could be achieved by professional revolutionaries who would presumably represent the proletariat. Lenin's expansion upon Marx's original theory of communism came to be known as Marxism-Leninism, an ideology that held significant worldwide influence following the successful Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Under Joseph Stalin the phrase, in practice, also essentially came to be understood as a dictatorship in the name of the proletariat.