{"id":3229,"date":"2008-09-04T18:27:20","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T23:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3229"},"modified":"2008-09-04T18:27:20","modified_gmt":"2008-09-04T23:27:20","slug":"a-community-organizer-is-a-person-in-your-neighborhood-in-your-neighborhood-in-your-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3229","title":{"rendered":"A Community Organizer is a person in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, so maybe not in your<\/em> neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Republicans were having some fun last night at the expense of Obama and all other \u201cCommunity Organizers\u201d across the land who are running for national office with such a prestigious entry on their resumes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sarah Palin was especially animated given the Obama campaign’s insistence of focusing on the VP candidates tenure as Mayor of a small town while conspicuously omitting the same as Governor of a State with hundreds of employees and a 6 billion dollar budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response, Obama\u2019s peeps felt the need to clarify just what a community organizer is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ‘Community Organizer’s’ New Clothes<\/a><\/p>\n

But the mystery of the “community organizer’s” job description was solved this morning, when an Obama campaign email, signed by the delightfully named David Plouffe, popped into our inbox.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wasn’t planning on sending you something tonight. But if you saw what I saw from the Republican convention, you know it demands a response.<\/em><\/p>\n

I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians. They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

But worst of all–and this deserves to be noted–they insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

You know that despite what John McCain and his attack squad say, everyday people have the power to build something extraordinary when we come together. Make a donation of $5 or more right now to remind them.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s clarify something for them right now.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s right–community organizing consists of helping elect Barack Obama president! This fits right in with Obama’s claim, noted here yesterday<\/a>, that he is more qualified to be president than Palin is to be vice president because, whereas she has run a mere town, he has run a campaign for himself.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I personally am not so impressed with experience as I am accomplishment. I am surrounded by people that have much experience in their given occupation but little accomplishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Palin’s speech included a joke that was not part of the prepared text: “You know what they say about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps someone can recast this as an Obama joke. Here’s our attempt:\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s the difference between a “community organizer” and a Chihuahua? A Chihuahua has a real job.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sarah Palin has relatively\u00a0little executive experience, although certainly more than the other three candidates. What she does<\/em> have, is a series of significant accomplishments that belie her young political career. She has leveraged that experience to serve someone other than herself.<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell, Obama has leveraged his position to serve no one but himself.<\/p>\n

If you were to extrapolate Palin’s and Obama’s career, ostensibly multiplying each candidate’s accomplishments pro forma, you would in Obama’s case, confirm the theorem that zero times zero is zero.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are we supposed to cast our eyes on the slums of Chicago, behold how well organized they are<\/a>, and exclaim in wonder, “Wow, Barack Obama did that!”?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So maybe zero times zero is negative five?\u00a0<\/p>\n

From\u00a0the Governor’s speech last night:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s a good line, but it still doesn’t explain what a “community organizer” does. Take away the “actual responsibilities” of a small-town mayor, and you have\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. nothing. Oh wait, that’s her point, isn’t it?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The community Barack Obama has organized is, in Plouffe’s own telling, the community of those who admire Barack Obama. He is mayor of Obamaville and aspires to be president of Barackistan.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is a sad state of affairs that national politics have become so polarized that a politician with no experience, a history of unsavory associations and no accomplishments to speak of can acquire so much political capital, despite the free flow\u00a0of information in\u00a0our connected world. Maybe Obama should have selected Al Gore as an encore VP.<\/p>\n

He, like Obama, has done so much with so little.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, so maybe not in your neighborhood.\u00a0 The Republicans were having some fun last night at the expense of Obama and all other \u201cCommunity Organizers\u201d across the land who are running for national office with such a prestigious entry on their resumes.\u00a0 Sarah Palin was especially animated given the Obama campaign’s insistence of focusing on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}