I woke up early Thursday morning with an urgent message staring back at me from my inbox: It was from David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, who sent a mass email out to all of Barack’s supporters and allies admonishing both Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani for openly mocking community organizers. “Let me clarify something for them right now,” Plouffe sternly upbraided, “Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.(emphasis his)”
Since I don’t have a television, I’ve been waiting until the day after to catch up on convention news, when everything is neatly available on the internet. And I have to say, after watching both of their speeches, I really don’t know what they were thinking by making fun of community organizing like that. I know that Palin’s comments were meant to shed a negative light on Obama’s lack of “executive experience” compared to hers, but come on…what she said (a quip about how “[Being] a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”) was just generally confusing, not to mention baseless. I’m sure that being a mayor of a small town of 6,000 people is challenging– nobody ever argued that– but I would suspect that in her case, it seems like it was nothing more than being a glorified high school principal. Even Palin herself quipped in 1996 that being the mayor of Wasilla, AK was “not rocket science,” which leads me to wonder just what sort of rocket scientist she would deem worthy of the executive experience necessary to lead a country. What “actual responsibilities” didn’t Obama have as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago? Organizing is hard work– especially with the constituency that Obama was charged with– and it’s insulting and alienating for the GOP to single out community organizers as not worthy of their party, despite all of their pandering to the common person. Palin’s attack was misguided in that it wasn’t critical of Obama personally so much as it was a sweeping, misguided blast on an entire segment of the population, akin to condemning truck drivers or computer programmers.
Giuliani’s comment was a bit more off the cuff, but nonetheless baffling. How could the former mayor of New York City– a place where community organizing has produced considerable changes that government entities could never hope to replicate– demean something so integral to maintaining the city? I could almost understand Palin’s misdirection, since she’s from small towns that might not see the direct benefits of organizing efforts, but everywhere I look in my own Brooklyn neighborhood, I see signs of development and progress that wouldn’t be possible without organizing efforts.
Plouffe forgot to mention former NY State governor George Pataki who quipped, “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer. What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.”
Really, Pataki? I mean, are you serious? Maybe do a little homework and you’ll find out about community organizations all across the state that YOU governed. Jeez. Yes, community organizers do real work, and it is definitely a real job (though typically an outrageously underpaid and overworked one). Community organizers have even started a blog to counter these attacks. They work to confront issues like affordable housing, poor health care and environmental concerns. I have never once questioned the legitimacy of nonprofit community work, and I don’t see why anyone in their right mind would.
What bothers me most about these comments is that there’s a clear lack of forethought going into them. Say “community organizer” to the people who say these things and the people who respond with raucous applause and you’re likely stirring up images of liberal college students, protesting this or that, holding clever signs and clipboards and making trouble for people walking down the street. They don’t recognize that community organizers are the ones trying to solve the problems that they preach about and can’t fix through government bureaucracy. You would think that the Republicans, for all their crowing about how big government can’t solve anything and how power should be given to the real people, would welcome community-based organizations the same way they acknowledge the faith-based ones. Not to mention the fact that Palin, who proudly boasts of being in the PTA, might do well to take note that Parent Teacher Associations could very well be lumped in the same category as ACORN or Make the Road.
I wish more politicians started out as community organizers, and indeed, that is one thing I like about Obama’s resume. Every other politician who works their way in through military experience (I’m looking at you, McCain) or legal expertise is just business as usual. Could it be that the GOP is afraid of change coming from a real leader who is in touch with real people? I recognize that the types of people who are outraged about their comments aren’t very likely to be the top priority for the GOP in terms of voters, but since there’s been so much empty rhetoric about uniting America across party lines, I’d like to see Republicans start tackling some real issues and stop attacking people who can affect real change in the streets.
