Gov. Palin's Comments on Community Organizers is Slammed

According to USA Today, "Community organizer' slams attract support for Obama. "They insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process," campaign manager David Plouffe wrote Thursday in an early-morning fundraising e-mail. "Let's clarify something for them right now. Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies."
Obama moved to Chicago after college and did church-based organizing to help people who lost their jobs when steel mills closed.
"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities," Palin said to an eruption of cheers. She was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (population: 9,780) from 1996 to 2002. Giuliani was interrupted with boos and laughter as soon as he uttered the phrase. "OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume," he said, laughing.
Jerry Kellman is the man who hired Obama as an organizer for the Developing Communities Project in 1985 at a salary of $10,000 a year. Obama's job: find out what people needed, be it job training programs, asbestos removal or potholes filled, and help them work together to get action from their elected officials.
The South Side Chicago area was devastated by factory closings and pollution, Kellman says, and people were discouraged by poverty and discrimination. "They had to be motivated to come out and try again and work with people they didn't necessarily see eye to eye with and maybe didn't even like," he says. He says Obama interviewed them, helped them strategize and "brought out their gifts."
The experience taught Obama to listen well and get along with all kinds of people, Kellman says. Obama says it gave him the grass-roots model for his highly successful presidential campaign.
Ron Walters, a top aide in Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, said Jackson's experience as a community organizer and civil rights worker "was systematically pooh-poohed as not important. Here we have the same thing. Barack Obama offers it as one aspect of his experience, and again it is systematically devalued."
Walters says he doesn't understand why — since organizing provides the same close connection with people that Palin claims from being a small-town mayor. Top Obama strategist David Axelrod was also puzzled. "They can demean service in the community," he said on Obama's plane Thursday, "but I think most people appreciate it."
Community service groups reacted strongly Thursday. Maude Hurd, president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said her group helps people learn leadership skills so they can work for better schools, wages and treatment from financial institutions. She said the "condescending attacks" were disappointing. A coalition of faith-based groups said political leaders should be thanking community organizers, not insulting them.
Republican John McCain's campaign made a terrible strategic mistake, says David Beckwith, executive director of the Needmor Fund, which funds community organizing across the country, and a board member of the Neighborhood Funders Group. He said the speeches made fun of "the people who are organized, not just the people who are doing the organizing. These are people who are deeply engaged in public life, and there are millions of them."
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said Palin's remarks were "a direct response to critics who had belittled her executive experience, in particular her experience as mayor. Certainly community organizers serve a valued function in civic affairs."
Several Republicans attending the convention said Thursday that they have nothing against community organizers. Former New Jersey governor Tom Kean said he worked with many of them when he ran a camp for underprivileged children years ago in New Hampshire. "Community organizing is a very valuable thing," he said.
He and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Palin and Giuliani were trying to underscore what they contend are Obama's slight qualifications for the presidency. "It goes to the issue of what has he run, what has he done. He's run nothing. He's accomplished not much," Pawlenty said.
Kellman says he left the organizing project a year after hiring Obama — and left Obama in charge. "He was director of the project for two years," Kellman says, and met the big challenge of stabilizing and expanding its church and foundation funding.
"He took something that was really flimsy and built it into something strong," Kellman says. "He made sure that when he left, there was something that would survive his leaving."

Republican Candidate McCain Chooses Alaska Gov. Palin

In a surprising move, Republican Candidate John McCain announced that his running mate is Republican Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Gov. Palin is NOT well-known. We have learned she has been governor of Alaska since 2006, and before that Palin was mayor of Wasilla (population of less than 10,000). She also was runner-up in the Miss Alaska contest of 1984. Palin is 44 years old, has a lifetime membership in the National Rifle Association (NRA), and enjoys mooseburgers. Her social politics: she wants to outlaw ALL abortions and opposes gay marriage. She was FOR Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere” before she was AGAINST it.

Obama raises $51 million in July

According to the LA Times, Democratic Candidate Barack Obama raised $51 million in July. Pushing the total he has raised since his presidential quest began to more than $390 million.
His take for the month dipped slightly from the $52 million he raised in June. But he nearly matched the roughly $53 million raised by rival Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee combined in July.

Obama to Speak at Invesco Field

According to USA Today, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, will deliver his acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High, home of the Denver Broncos football team. The stadium can seat about 76,000, nearly four times the crowd that can be accommodated at Denver's Pepsi Center, the basketball arena where the Democrats will hold their nominating convention.
The decision to move out of the convention hall heightens the symbolism of a speech already laden with historic significance. The acceptance speech by Obama, the first African-American to be nominated for president by a major party, falls on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speech calling for racial equality.

Obama's Leadership Skills

Barack Obama's presidential campaign is a sight to behold for many reasons, but among the least appreciated is its allergy to the disunity and spatting that generally convulses even the most successful of endeavors.
Obama, who never managed so much as a newsstand, has turned out to be a fairly remarkable leader of a what's becoming a billion dollar enterprise.
Here's a look at the principles responsible for his success:
1. A challenging, clearly-defined mission.
Win the Democratic nomination. Ok, that's obvious. But in November of 2006, Obama had a handful of wealthy Jewish donors from Chicago ready to raise money, a few Democratic strategy types who stood ready to put a campaign together, and not much of anything else. The challenge was immense, and the folks who joined the Obama campaign early on -- this was when Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner -- came aboard because they believed in Obama the challenge, not because they expected glory or material rewards. Salaries weren't competitive with the Clinton campaign's either. Obama attracted a large number of ideological Democrats who either had reason to dislike the Clintonian influence over the party or who believed that Obama stood at the crossroads between history and hope.
2. Clear lines of authority, with budget power appropriately vested in the campaign manager.
David Plouffe was named campaign manager and given the portfolio of essentially building an airplane as it was speeding down the runway. Plouffe's authority did not derive from his personal relationship with Barack Obama; indeed, Plouffe really didn't interact much with Obama before the campaign. Instead, it derived from the decisions he made that Obama later ratified. A corollary: Obama's best friend, Marty Nesbitt, was named campaign treasurer. That meant that Nesbitt, too, had oversight functions about spending and could make sure that Obama's personal values were reflected in the decisions made by the campaign.
David Axelrod would handle strategy, always a kind of messy and intrusive portfolio, but the strategy was pretty clear from the start: this is a change election, and Obama's the change agent.
Robert Gibbs would handle the press; and handle is a good word, because Obama's relationship with the press has been fascinating as it has evolved.
Their subordinates were generally given tasks and clear lines of authority.
3. The tone from the top.
Much has been written about Plouffe's preternatural unflappability, but his attitude helps confirm a basic principle of psychology: when the boss is freaked, employees get freaked. When the boss is calm, employees tend to remain calm.
But there's Obama's tone, too. Generally happy. "No drama." That's made clear to new employees, who feel the presence of the dictum as they go about their work. Drama disappoints Obama. No one wants to disappoint Obama. So -- if there are conflicts -- staffers are advised to work them out by themselves. A social cuing effect helps to cement the bond here; employees see that everyone else is getting along and feel pressure to get along, too.
4. Protecting Obama's public image at all costs
This one's also obvious, but it has been a priority from day one. The type of people drawn to the campaign are the type of people who would be angry at themselves if they somehow distorted the carefully crafted image that Obama and guru Gibbs et. al. had worked to create.
5. The personality cult
Not meant as an insult or a reference to messianic fervor; I mean more a reflection of Obama's personality. Obama is an occasionally fastidious perfectionist. He expects a high level of professional integrity from his staff; he expects a higher level of execution. When things go wrong, Obama doesn't just leave the aftermath to his subordinates, he actively helps to clean it up.
6. Decisions made quickly and decisively.
Occasionally, Obama temporizes. But just as often, he endorses quick, clear decision-making.
7. The freedom to do things differently.
Let the Clintons run their campaign the traditional way. Obama had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and so his campaign could experiment; they were trying to accomplish something that no challenger had every before accomplished, so they could afford to try new things, to throw out the old rulebooks, to ignore established habits of mind, and take some risks.

Jesse Jackson on Obama

Jesse Jackson may have just overstayed his welcome. But because of Jesse's heightened position in the media, what he said about cutting Obama's nuts off seemed almost insane. His comments are more than strange, especially in the context of the way American society has always feared and been allured by the black man's genitalia--from it being cut off before a lynching to lynch parties gathering because a white woman made a false accusation of rape against a black man and on to the more contemporary phenomenon of "Mandigo parties" (if you don't know what they are, look it up).

Jesse's statement was more than a little disturbing when you consider this country's past.
It makes you wonder what in the hell was Jesse thinking about? I'm sure there are greater thinkers who will tackle the psychology and motivation for Jesse's statement in a much better way than I ever could.But what Jesse Jackson said was so ridiculous and not only that, but he did something that I've been praying he and other civil rights leaders of old wouldn't do. He has put comments out there that'll give all the wrong people--to be blunt, those specific people who like to see this sort of conflict, especially between two prominent black people-- the ammunition they need to try to exploit the connection blacks have developed with Obama.

Nothing that Obama has been saying in his speeches in black churches or anywhere else about personal responsibility is wrong or elitist. He wasn't talking down to black people and what he's been saying applies to anyone, black or white. And what might surprise a lot of people is that most blacks agree with Obama. Jackson, in my mind, is struggling with the fact that Obama is where he is not. Now Jesse has to realize that its time that he fall back and support what his and other black civil rights good works have given rise to.

Sen. Hillary Clinton's Decision to stay in Primary Race

Throughout the course of the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the title of Democratic nominee, a lot is being made on how it will effect the nominee in the Fall. The mudslinging, the name-calling, the shots at experience and policy- for the most part, it appeared that the punches thrown could do nothing but hobble the eventual nominee.

However, I believe her decision to stay in the race will only make Sen. Obama stronger. By the time he is chosen as the Democratic nominee he will be ready for Sen. John McCain. This tough contest with Clinton has sharpen Obama's policy ideas and speeches therefore making him a better candidate.