Attacking community organizers = Republican race-baiting

The Republicans had expected that their orchestrated attack on Barack Obama's community organizing efforts in Chicago would link the Democratic candidate in Americans' minds with inner cities, the poor, racial minorities, troublemakers and radicals. At the same time, they wanted to demean -- and portray as strange and exotic -- Obama's decision to work on behalf of American working families facing tough times, a choice at odds with the GOP portrayal of Obama as part of an elite insensitive to the concerns of most voters.

At the St. Paul confab on September 3, former New York Gov. George Pataki had sneered, "[Obama] was a community organizer. What in God's name is a community organizer? I don't even know if that's a job." Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani's mocked, "He worked as a community organizer. What? Maybe this is the first problem on the résumé." In her speech accepting the VP nomination, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that the you have actual responsibilities."

The following Sunday (September 14), on "Meet the Press,"..Giuliani, utilizing what used to be called "red-baiting" tactics in the McCarthy era, then tried to link Obama to what he called "a very core Saul Alinsky kind of almost socialist notion that [government] should be used for redistribution of wealth." The group that recruited Obama , the Developing Communities Project on Chicago's south side, was not affiliated with the Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation, but with the Gamaliel Foundation, a network of church-based groups.

Within hours after the GOP convention, Obama released a statement and a fund-raising appeal, challenging the Republicans who "mocked, dismissed, and actually laughed out loud at Americans who engage in community service and organizing." His campaign manager David Plouffe sent another fundraising e-mail, saying, "Let's clarify something for them right now. Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies." Following the GOP convention, contributions to the Obama campaign spiraled.

Obama often refers to the valuable lessons he learned working "in the streets" of Chicago. "I've won some good fights and I've also lost some fights," he said in a speech during the primary season, "because good intentions are not enough, when not fortified with political will and political power."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/palin-attacks-on-communit_b_129568...
John Raskin, who said: "Community organizing is kind of the antidote to big money lobbying. It's the way that ordinary people come together to hold the government accountable to what they actually need. So the job of an organizer, someone like me or what Barack Obama was doing twenty years ago and other folks do around the country, is bring people together. You know, you knock on doors, you go to churches, you go to synagogues, you go to mosques, you have meetings. But people come together around what they need in the community."

Raskin referred the audience to a website for Community Organizers of America. On it, there is a good defense of the work. "Regular people, working together, are the lifeblood of American democracy. Community organizing is how we keep that democracy strong, vital and accountable to its people."

During the Bush presidency, the executive branch has operated under the theory of the unitary executive, which allows for the president to be a tyrant. Now, this election year, Barack Obama's formative work experience was as a community organizer. That is, instead of making decisions from the top like a CEO with executive experience and not knowing how most people live, he worked with people to help better their communities. As he said on September 7 on ABC's This Week:

"Understand what I--what I did as a community organizer. When I got out of college as a young person, twenty-four, twenty-five years old, I had moved to Chicago and worked with churches, who were dealing with steel plants that had closed in their neighborhoods, to set up job training programs for the unemployed and after-school programs for youth and to try to deal with asbestos in homes of poor people. Community service work, which John McCain has been talking about putting country first and extolling the virtues of national service, that's what I did between the ages of twenty-four and twenty-seven, before I went to law school. I would think that's what we want all our young people to do."
This experience is probably the best reason to vote for Barack. That and his eloquent opposition to invading Iraq, and his experience as a professor of constitutional law, and, well, 6.6 billion (current human population of the world) other reasons.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-macafee/community-organizing-expe_b_1256...

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[CyeOutsider]

@Mrparrot73 - People only cared that Palin was a small town mayor because it implied inexperience. Obama was inexperienced too, but he made up for it by coming across as coherent, intelligent, measured and *informed* about the national agenda. The real concern about Palin was that she was an ignoramus who couldn't string a coherent sentence together, even when asked soft questions. Anything factually based or requiring critical thought was clearly beyond her. It just did not bode well.

[bigbengamer]

CNN = This is, that will be, here's how we know it is

FOX = This might be, that may happen, we have no proof, but here's what we think it is.

[toverkleet]

Mike, I like you, but you are really trying to cling on half assed bullshit, instead of being bloody honest and call your so called (now former) front runner out when they are talking bullshit. Have guts.

[MsImran109]

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[farronx]

@ManicRider

I'm a realist not a racist.

Where's the supposed "racist comment" left on your channel that you're now referring to?

If racism on my part ever existed I'd report it to You Tube if I were U.

Now stop trying to deflect from the comment U left on my channel then cowardly blocked my retort; resulting in my having to respond to U here. My wrath for U will be daily;so get use to it.

BTW I see I got U to change that pedophile cartoon pick huh? One child saved from U is a start.

1love

X

[ManicRaider]

@farronx You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up. You dun goofed up.

[ManicRaider]

@farronx Stop being such a fag. Go and fuck your aids filled mother's pussy and suck your redneck father's dick you dumb piece of shit. Stop leaving racist comments on my channel!

[MrZapi02]

Steele, the gift that keeps on giving. Everytime Palin and Steele talk

thats more votes for Obama. Community Organizer is not a

bad thing. Crawl before you walk, organize a community before

organizing a Country. Every canidate should be required to work

first with there community before seeking higher office.

There is nothing in Palin resume that qualified her to be Governor

ANYWHERE!!

[CyeOutsider]

@bigbengamer - I don't think it was a question of who was more educated. You don't have to be educated to be intelligent. Palin's problem is that she just isn't intelligent. She's from the "ignorant and proud" section of the American Right.

[bigbengamer]

@CyeOutsider You mean he made up for it by having a Law degree, with a minor in international relations. Palin has a bachelor's in journalism with a MINOR in political science. I dated a girl who had a bachelor's in political science, and her best job she got with that was a paralegal.