Advocacy groups claim credit for helping Obama

Post-election, there's the blame game of what went wrong. But there's also the credit game of claiming some part of the victory.

In the latter category comes MoveOn.org, the grassroots antiwar group that was one of Barack Obama's earliest and most important backers.

It announced today that since endorsing Obama in February, its 4.5 million members gave more than $88 million to Obama, $58 million directly and another $30 million to independent efforts.

Also, it said, more than 1 million members worked in the field, including 600,000 in battleground states. MoveOn.org said it added 1 million young members between June and September and registered more than 500,000 new Obama supporters in swing states.

“Our members sense the opportunity to achieve things that seemed improbable if not impossible only a year ago," Eli Pariser, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "For our members, this is the culmination of a decade of work to build a progressive, people-driven politics in America.

“President Obama will face daunting challenges from the day he takes office. We look forward, however, to being part of the enormous wave of civic and political engagement that his Presidency has inspired and that will enable him to achieve the things that have been on the top of his agenda and ours. We look forward to the change all of us worked so hard to create.”

The AFL-CIO also sought its share of credit, declaring, "Union voters played an important role in President-elect Obama's historic victory, delivering a critical bloc of support in swing states that helped propel Obama and other working family candidates to big wins last night."

The nation's largest labor federation cited election-night polling that showed union members supported Obama by a 68 percent by 30 percent margin in key battleground states and that Obama won several demographic groups among union members -- white men, gun owners, and veterans -- that Obama lost in the general public.

The AFL-CIO also said that high turnout among union voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan "formed a foundation of support for Obama," and that more than 250,000 members who hit the streets represented "the largest independent voter mobilization in history."

"Led by a candidate with an uncommon ability to inspire hope, we reclaimed our country from those who are serving corporate interests and the privileged at the expense of everyone else," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement. "We have taken the first crucial steps to build a better future for our children and grandchildren. And what we've seen – the stunning voter participation and the common call for change – is an indication of the history we can continue to make together."

UPDATE: Also vying for attention: NARAL Pro-Choice America, which took quite a bit of heat when it became the first major abortion rights advocacy group to jump from Hillary Clinton to Obama.

It said it repeatedly contacted about 290,000 households about McCain’s anti-abortion rights record and noted that Obama won all eight battleground states where it contacted voters on his behalf.

The group also declared victory in what it calculated was a net gain of 16 abortion right supporters in the US House and five in the US Senate seats, with four more Senate races still undecided. And voters defeated anti-abortion ballot measures in California, Colorado, and South Dakota.