Last week, I gave a short presentation to my local Labour party about my time volunteering on the Obama campaign over the past year, and about the lessons we need to consider for our own progressive movement here in Britain.

True, I said, Barack Obama is a unique political talent of sound judgement, vision and oratorical skill, who remained calm and on message throughout 21 months of a bitterly fought campaign, and who was smart, charismatic, good-looking and, yes, black, at a time when America and the world craved a new direction both politically and symbolically.

True, John McCain made costly strategic errors in placing Sarah Palin on the ticket, in suspending his campaign to return to Washington to debate the bailout of the banks in September, and in countering Obama’s message of Hope with the sinister fear-mongering seen at McCain rallies in October.

True, the Republican Party was fighting against a wave of anti-Bush sentiment that would have been difficult for any GOP candidate to overcome.

And granted, the respective political standings of the centre left parties in America in 2008 and Britain in 2009 are not identical or even especially similar.

But there remain a number of lessons to be drawn.

Because although Obama was a rare individual at a rare time in history, it wasn’t his ability or his strength of character or circumstance alone that won him the presidency. What beat off the two most powerful political machines in American politics – the Clintons and the Republican Party – was the openness and autonomy of the slow-building grassroots operation he built across America, and the tenacity and trust in the people he demonstrated in doing so.

In every state across America, and in every community, large and small, Obama outlets were established by everyday supporters in union offices and community centres, in disused stores and in people’s homes, without direction from central HQ.

Initially very small, these bases grew through the passion and dedication of ordinary voices. They became centres of activity and snowballed into powerful community-based organisations in their own right through the primaries. Executive decisions on fundraising and the application of resources were made by unpaid strategists on the ground based on the localised knowledge of where they would be most productive and they were actioned by volunteers who harnessed existing social networks and cultural and community groups – gigs in Brooklyn, hurricane relief programmes in Texas – to spread the word and show the power of the community cooperation and cohesion that are at the heart of progressive politics.

But more than that, strangers were able to walk in off the street and devote as much or as little time as they had to the cause, and all were made to feel equally welcome and equally valuable to the overall cause. If you were a working parent, you could make canvassing calls from your living room for an hour at a time after the kids had gone to bed. If you were a bartender, you were given merchandise to wear to work to improve brand recognition. If you wanted to throw an Obama themed party, you were sent DVDs and campaign literature, volunteer sign up forms and voter registration papers. Everyone – even a Brit without a vote and with little campaigning experience – was encouraged to articulate a personal narrative of why they supported Obama.

The decentralised nature of the insurgent campaign quickly came to define it. Independent Obama supporting groups, connecting instantly through hubs in the new media, embraced guerrilla contributions and disseminated them online and appealed to people on a human and emotional level. That’s why I challenged the members at my local meeting to bring their music, painting, poetry, dance – whatever they have – to the table. Because this is where Labour can engage and succeed anew.

This form of political franchising works because it gives fringe voices a platform and a personal and intellectual stake in the movement. It enables people to see the tangible results of their work at first hand and take extraordinary pride in their ability to make a difference. I spoke to one man in Virginia who said that every time he left the house with his Obama t-shirt on, he felt he had to show an extra degree of decorum and respect, because he was representing millions of others.

And it is because new media is so important to the operation of the decentralised campaign that I was encouraged to hear Peter Mandelson speak of the desire to end command and control in favour of embracing and engaging online. But if the full lessons of the Obama campaign are to be learned, we need to be doing more. We need a social networking hub akin to Obama’s MyBo, where people can advertise and share campaigning events, and we need a database of email addresses and phone numbers to expand our reach. And as a near-bankrupt organisation, we also need to develop better Web 2.0 tools, tools that will improve our fundraising operation online.

A decentralised strategy will require bold leadership, and leadership that is comfortable with diminished control. But it’s what the Labour party needs to do now because it fits with our values of togetherness and community fairness, and it amplifies the voices of the electorate.

It also plays to our strengths as a leader in community involvement. We already have a strong tradition of local activism, and the institutional capacity to engage through our local wards and CLPs. But we need to harness our people better and attract more and new groups to our events and enlarge the pool of debate through a new diversity and awareness of campaigning events.

If we can reconnect with our tradition as the party of grassroots activism and build a new spirit of volunteerism and a network of hardworking campaigners who connect and share ideas through the new media; if we can encourage everyone who believes that the minimum wage and devolution and peace in Northern Ireland were developments only a Labour government could bring to go knocking on their neighbours’ doors; and if we can establish a supportive central operation that empowers our communities by facilitating and encouraging autonomous local campaigns, then we will win the next election, and we will have strengthened our communities in doing so.