I didn’t expect the Republicans to be nice last night, they needed to energize their base and make a strong case against Obama and while they veered farther to the right than I thought they would, what surprised me and actually really angered me was when Rudy Giuliani mentioned that Barack Obama was a community organizer and following which, the crowd and Giuliani both laughed. And after that, Sarah Palin also dogged on Barack’s community organizing..
A group of young Obama supporters. Photo by Barack Obama (Creative Commons)
This I thought was pretty disgusting. Community organizing isn’t easy work, it doesn’t pay well and often yields small results, meaning the person doing the work has to find motivation somewhere other than instant success and change. They have to find motivation in the people they are meeting and truly believe in the grassroots work they are doing. And even if you can’t usually pinpoint it’s success, community organizing is vital to understanding how communities work and what the needs of working people, and low-income people are. And this it seems to me would be an important thing to understand as the President of our country.
The Nation wrote an article back in 2007 about Obama’s early community work and what I think the Republican party missed in their laughing at community organizers is how it helped to shape the man they are running against:
But, he (Obama) continued, “I grew up to be a man, right here, in this area. It’s as a consequence of working with this organization and this community that I found my calling. There was something more than making money and getting a fancy degree. The measure of my life would be public service.”
Experiences like this, that shape a person, are most definitely important to when it comes to who we elect this November. And I would have to think that the Republicans agree or they wouldn’t keep bringing up McCain’s POW experience, which like community organizing, doesn’t directly lend itself to any specific skills or knowledge that one would need to be the President and therefore doesn’t make him more qualified, it simply gives a window into who John McCain is.
Also, I think it is perhaps important to point out, as Sarah Palin herself decided to compare her experience to Obama’s, that while Obama was a community organizer at age 24, Sarah Palin was a sports reporter for an Anchorage TV station and occasionally helped her husband with his commercial fishing business.
Just saying…
My point though has less to do with Obama or Palin or McCain and more to do with this - community organizers and people who get involved on a grassroots community level are vital and are to be thanked not laughed at. That is work that means something to communities and to people and to me.
And on that note, please takepart and get involed with ACORN, “the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.”
Sounds like a good group to me..
Read on:
- Right Wing Cries Foul at Palin Media Treatment
- Obama Stands Up For Palin’s and Policiticans’ Families
- Sarah Palin For McCain, Against the Polar Bears
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My Lord and Savior started out as a Community Organizer. Paul the apostle was a Community Organizer. The people who crucified him were “Mayors and Governers”.
Laugh at me now…i’ll just have to pray for you.
I find it ironic that the GOP is constantly calling Sen. Obama “elite”, yet GOP spakers were ridiculing him as a community organizer, as though they were clearly revealing their ignorance to the importance of this position. I guess their saying people like Martin Luther King was wasting his time or chosing a meaningless task being involving in community organizing.
I put this up on my Wisconsin blog, fyi:
http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2008/09/bashing-obamas-work-as-community.html
Palin lit a fire under the GOP but not much has been said about how much she may have modivated the Dems. I hope that the Obama camp community-organizes the GOP right out of Washington.
Obama’s first reaction through his campaign to the announcement of Palin’s selection was to put her down for getting her start as a Mayor of a small 9,000 person town. Yet you don’t acknowledge that.
Small town mayors and community organizer both don’t have it easy. They both should be applauded cuz they both are trying to move their communities forward with leadership. But a small town mayor has an extra layer of legal responsibility to all of a towns citizens that a CO does not.
But if you make fun of a small town mayor for being a small town mayor don’t cry when they come back and defend themselves with the comment that was made.
If you have someone to blame blame Obama for letting something like that come out of his campaign last Friday morning. He left himself open putting her down on that point. He tried to make fun of her for getting her start helping her community as a small town mayor, when helping his community was exactly how he got his start. He knew it was a mistake to have said that cuz later in that day he backtracked and tried to take it back. But damage was done.
So two wrongs don’t make it right and I can admit it was a cold thing for her to say about CO’s.
But can you admit that if Obama was wrong and should not have tried to dog her out in the first place which provoked the comment?
If a VP does not understand what community organizing is there is no chance they will be elected……and if they do, it will be purely ironic, because it is through a community organizing model that all elections are run and voting campaigns based on.
Hi Gina, I’m glad you wrote this. After hearing Rudy Giuliani laugh and watching him sneer at Obama’s work as a community organizer, I googled for blogs that might have a comment and was happy to find yours!
I have a response for Steven: Obama was not as rude as Giuliani or Palin as to laugh at the Alaska governor and her experience. He did not belittle her, as they belittled Obama’s generous and kind work as a community organizer.
What is hypocritical in all this is that “community organizing” is something that many Christians who republicans count on for votes do. It is a cornerstone of Pastor Rick Warren’s work, who as you’ll remember, interview both Obama and McCain a few weeks ago.
Community organizers may find themselve working closely with at-risk youth and people that society has largely forgotten about. This is such good, important, moral and ethical work - it’s a little bit heart breaking to watch Giuliani mock it.
A community organizer is a worthy job - BUT - it does note provide any credible experience for a person to be president of the United States. A community organizer is not elected, does not answer to the citizens and is not constanlty scrutinized by the citizens of the community they are organizing. The make no decisions at the city, state or country levels. So stop pretending that there is any equilvance betwen a CO versus, say, a mayor or govenor. There’s just no contest. Oh wait.. you say Senator Obama was also a college instructor?… cuckle…, I rest my case.
@ Michael: Barack Obama never said that being a Community Organizer qualified him to be President. He DID say that as Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has a staff of 50; his 2-year-old campaign staff is 50 times that size; and his MONTHLY budget is three times larger than her annual budget.
He’s been a US Senator for as long as she’s been a Governor, and he was a State Senator for from a city with more population than the entire state of Alaska for eight years before that. Before THAT he was a college professor, and before THAT he was a community organizer. He was also editor of the Harvard Law Review, while she attended six colleges in 5 years.
Before becoming Governor, she was mayor of a town of 7,000, and before that she was a member of the PTA–a community organization, by the way. She left the town of which she was mayor with a debt of several million dollars, while the Obama Campaign is financially strong and secure with nary a scandal.
Please know your facts before trying to make a point.
Barack Obama is running against John Bush-McCain, not Sarah Palin. Now let’s compare Joe Biden and Sarah Palin who thinks just being close to Russia equals “foreign policy experience”…
How dare Republicans mock the noble contributions that community organizers make in their communities. Isn’t that what we need from a President? Republicans make it seem as if the presidency had nothing to do with helping individuals with common issues that trouble their lives.
Not so funny now, is it Rudy?