PROVIDENCE –– Armed with call lists, talking points and worn cell phones, a handful of volunteers pushed for a national health-care overhaul from the wooden tables of Blue State Coffee Tuesday night.

The coffee-house phone bank –– staffed largely with local students –– hardly looked like a sophisticated political operation.

But it represented Rhode Island’s contribution to a one-day coordinated event that produced as many as 200,000 phone calls to congressional offices across the country, according to the Democratic National Committee. It was also a coming-out party of sorts for the Ocean State’s chapter of Organizing for America, the political arm of the DNC that hopes to harness the faded enthusiasm and resources of a presidential campaign that changed history last fall.

“This is a neighbor-to-neighbor, person-to-person conversation,” Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts said of the health-care debate at a related event earlier in the day. “You have the opportunity as individuals to reach out … as we saw so effectively in last year’s campaign.”

Nine months after President Obama took office, Organizing for America — the reincarnation of Obama for America — has established a presence in every state in the nation under the direction of the DNC, which earlier this month hired recent Brown University graduate Emilie Aries to serve as its state director.

“Just because we’re a blue state does not mean we can sit this one out,” Aries said of federal health-care legislation pending in Congress that already enjoys the support of Rhode Island’s four members of Congress, all Democrats.

Tuesday’s event may have produced new pressure on the legislative branch to act, but it also exposed a rift between Organizing for America and the state Democratic Party.

Party Chairman William Lynch said he had “zero” knowledge of the event.

“I knew nothing about it until you called,” he told a reporter Tuesday afternoon. “Does it make sense for Organizing for America and the DNC to be running events in the states where the state party is uninformed and uninvolved? I think it’s dumb business, but they have a right to do what they want to do.”

Lynch earlier in the month issued a letter to several party leaders, including Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, noting that “numerous Democratic state chairs throughout the country who were not, frankly, overly enthused by the plans to unleash OFA across the country.”

“As the Rhode Island Democratic State Chair, I did not think then, nor do I think now, that it is generally advisable, nor beneficial to have a separate and distinct Democratic political organization working in the State of Rhode Island, as opposed to joining forces with our existing state party structure,” Lynch wrote. “This, however, was not a decision that was left up to me by OFA and, in fact, I have had virtually no input into OFA’s plans here in Rhode Island.”

Aries downplayed the conflict.

“We’re separate, but we co-exist peacefully,” she said. “We are all on the same page in terms of fighting for the same issues.”

The DNC reported that Tuesday’s campaign — which also included a series of rallies and informational meetings –– produced more than 200,000 phone calls to congressional offices. A spokesman later clarified that the figures were self-reported by volunteers and included “pledged calls” by people contacted by phone bank workers.

Rhode Island Republicans have no coordinated lobbying effort planned, according to state GOP Chairman Giovanni Cicione, who suggested that the Organizing for America effort was an acknowledgment of waning public support for Democrats’ health-care legislation.

But he also noted the group’s potential political power.

“They took political organizing to a new level,” he said of the Obama volunteer network. “It is an incredible machine they’ve created. The problem is, do you use it for good or for bad?”

Rhode Island’s congressional delegation reported steady call volume throughout the day.

“We have been hearing from Rhode Islanders about the need for health-insurance reform for months,” said Sen. Jack Reed spokesman Chip Unruh. But “there has been a surge in calls today from folks who strongly support health-care reform.”

Stephanie Rudig may have been partially responsible.

The 21-year-old Rhode Island School of Design senior graphic design major had never volunteered on a phone bank before Tuesday. She learned of the opportunity through the president’s Facebook page.

“It’s been pretty positive so far,” she said in between calls, a script, list of phone numbers of “likely supporters” and talking points on the table in front of her.

Mr. Obama later addressed these volunteers, and others like them around the country, during a live speech broadcast through his Web site.

speoples@projo.com