The great Jay Smooth points out that the GOP suddenly hates “community organizers”—even though the “base” basically are community organizers. Is this a semantic issue? Does the term “community organizer” actually derive from some different set of historical circumstances, such that it has a lineage separate from what it is that conservative community organizers do?
Smooth: “The difference between a community organizer and a politician is that community organizers are the ones who take the responsibility upon themselves to help their fellow citizens without the benefit of a government budget behind them…. which is what allows you politicians to be able to go on tv and brag about how this is the greatest country in the world. And for you to go on that tv show and spit in those people’s faces for the sake of a rhetorical flourish is disgusting.”
62 comments
September 4, 2008 at 8:24 am
eric
And before anyone starts in with Saul Alinsky and Hillary Rodham, “community organizing” goes back well before Rules for Radicals.
September 4, 2008 at 8:31 am
Ahistoricality
Really, the difference between a community organizer and a politician is that community organizers can’t fire people they disagree with, or have them investigated by the Justice department.
September 4, 2008 at 8:40 am
Luke
Just heard a caller on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer’s show make the point that the underlying message in that line of attack is that “community organizers” are what they have in big cities, where Negros and Latinos live with all their damned problems. They need “community organizers” in big cities because they don’t have values. Out here in the real America, we have “towns” where organization is natural around our essential goodness and patriotism. We don’t need “organizers,” who are always agitators, rabble rousers, operatives of the Democrat Party, usually communist, or, even worse, Communists.
In the last two elections, Bush has won by throwing as much shit against the wall as possible and getting just enough to stick. This cultural populism is the same bullshit… Obama’s gotta go right at it, strongly condemning a critique of people who make $9000 a year working 60 hour weeks to try to help fellow citizens.
September 4, 2008 at 8:45 am
zunguzungu
That caller that Luke mentions seems dead on; there also seems to be a certain antagonism to the idea of top-down progressives who will come in (from elsewhere) and exert power over “our” communities, the point being that it slots “organizer” into a conversation that’s already going on about “state’s rights” vs. “Big gummint.” A community organizer is, by definition, from elsewhere.
September 4, 2008 at 8:48 am
Matt W
Absolutely Luke; they’ve already made that line of attack a lot less implicit, with the phrase “street organizer”.
September 4, 2008 at 8:52 am
Matt W
When I say “that line,” I specifically mean the “Negro” part of it.
September 4, 2008 at 8:55 am
Ben Alpers
“community organizer” = “outside agitator” = “uppity Negro” = “celebrity” = “cosmopolitan” (and I don’t mean the drink)
September 4, 2008 at 8:57 am
urbino
the underlying message in that line of attack is that “community organizers” are what they have in big cities, where Negros and Latinos live with all their damned problems
Exactly. My guess is the phrase also rings of peace-ins and hippies and “power to the people” in conservative ears.
September 4, 2008 at 9:02 am
Ben Alpers
The attacks on community organizers seem particular odd when Palin and her party did such a nice job visually invoking some of the last century’s greatest community organizers (and, no, that image is not photoshopped).
September 4, 2008 at 9:04 am
eric
Chris Hayes on community organizers. Anyway, where is Hillary Clinton on this?
September 4, 2008 at 9:04 am
ari
What am I looking at there, Ben? I honestly can’t tell.
September 4, 2008 at 9:06 am
urbino
Yeah, I missed last night’s speeches, but I heard Rudy did an impressive Goebbels.
I think Josh Marshall and Jim Fallows are right, though. I see how this stuff will gin up the
suckersbase, but I don’t see how it expands their support any, which is what they need.September 4, 2008 at 9:09 am
Ben Alpers
Primarily the upraised right arm, Ari, but also the zig zag that looks somewhat like this.
But like any joke, if I have to explain it….
September 4, 2008 at 9:20 am
Luke
“expands their support any…”
But she’s so down to earth! Oh I never met a community organizer anyway, so they must be as silly as she says. She really loves her family (and omg Levi is HOT), and she’s so spunky and just like me. She’s not telling the truth? Oh, well they all do that. Obama really isn’t much more than Hollywood anyway, and I’ve never really met anyone like him. What has he done? Change would be really good, and we’ve never had anyone in power like Sarah before. She’ll protect us.
Oh man, how I hope to feel like a miserable cynic in two months… the problem with my cynicism, though, is that events in this country have a way of turning it into realism.
Really, though, I have no idea how this’ll play out. I just always cringe when my side seems to be playing by certain rules, and the other side ignores ‘em.
September 4, 2008 at 9:23 am
Levi Stahl
(and omg Levi is HOT)
Thanks, Luke!
Oh. There’s another Levi out there? Dammit. Gonna have to change my name to Zeke or some such.
September 4, 2008 at 9:24 am
urbino
Ain’t that always the way between civilized people and . . . others. Honestly, I find myself more and more convinced that Yglesias has had this right for some time now: conservatism is fundamentally malign.
September 4, 2008 at 9:25 am
urbino
My 9:24 hearts Luke’s 9:20.
September 4, 2008 at 9:26 am
ari
I didn’t have my glasses on, Ben. Sorry about that.
September 4, 2008 at 9:44 am
eric
As to “how this’ll play out,” there is actual information out there, you don’t have to rely on Democratic paranoia.
Here’s the polling on the post-pick, pre-speech effect: McCain gained among GOP women, but Obama among independent and Democratic man.
Here’s some speech reactions. Note the independent respondents’ views.
September 4, 2008 at 9:47 am
silbey
We’ve really gotta stop acting surprised that the Republicans actually want to win the election. This is pretty much what the Clintons were warning about during the primaries.
To win, McCain can demonstrate that he will be a superior President or that Obama will not be. The former is kind of hard at the moment, given the GOP/Bush disasters of the last eight years, though they’re still trying to sell it. But if they can’t do the former, they are surely doing the latter. And part of that is tearing down Obama’s biography. We say “community organizer,” they say “communist black carpetbagger.”
Voters complain about negative politics but they lap it up every four years.
September 4, 2008 at 9:53 am
eric
To win, McCain can demonstrate that he will be a superior President or that Obama will not be.
But he has to demonstrate it to particular groups—independents in swing states. Per the Michigan look above, Palin hasn’t helped him there. Here’s another.
September 4, 2008 at 9:58 am
urbino
Yes. That.
September 4, 2008 at 10:02 am
Levi Stahl
I’m not surprised that these (admittedly unscientific, if not haphazard) groupings of possible independent voters weren’t swayed by the speech. I was surprised at how straightforwardly hard-right it was, all the way down to the sarcastic tone (which, in what is perhaps no more than a reflection of my partisan leanings, I associate far more with the right than the left). I expected it to be more about vague uplift and such–sort of what the right accuses Obama’s rhetoric of being.
I’ll be surprised if we see this speech make much of a dent in the lead Obama appeared to be building earlier in the week. (Though, as my wife would remind you, with pointed reference to 2000 and 2004, I’ve been spectacularly wrong before.)
September 4, 2008 at 10:03 am
Ben Alpers
We’ve really gotta stop acting surprised that the Republicans actually want to win the election. This is pretty much what the Clintons were warning about during the primaries.
Is anyone actually surprised about this? If there is any surprise it is how the Republicans are trying to win this election. Their campaign so far suggests that they think they can do it largely by energizing the base. This worked for them in 2004, so it’s not an entirely irrational plan. But the political landscape has changed in the last four years, and Obama is not Kerry. Whether that’s enough to prevent a repeat of 2004 remains to be seen.
The other way to read the last week or so of the McCain campaign is that he understands that he needs to appeal to independent voters and that he believes Palin is the way to do so. I think we’ll be seeing that this is a pretty profound misunderstanding of what those voters are looking for.
Weren’t the Clintons really warning us that Barack Obama cannot win in November? I thought–and think–that they were entirely wrong.
September 4, 2008 at 10:07 am
eric
Getting the GOP base out isn’t good enough. In PA, e.g., Dems have a registration advantage of 4.3m to 3.2m.
September 4, 2008 at 10:13 am
eric
Not to mention Franco Harris and the Bus love the O-man!
September 4, 2008 at 10:14 am
Ben Alpers
Those registration numbers, and Bush’s enormous unpopularity, are some of the ways in which this is not 2004.
Of course, the Democrats still have to get their base to the polls, too. But that really does seem to be a specialty of Obama and his campaign, which is focusing on the ground game to an extent that’s really new in presidential politics.
All of which is why I was a bit surprised that so much attention has been lavished on the GOP base in the last week.
I still think the safe play for McCain for VP would have been Portman or maybe Pawlenty. But if he was going to throw a Hail Mary, it would have been better to gamble on the base and put a Susan Collins or a Tom Ridge on the ticket (I’m not convinced that McCain’s actual favorite f-you to the base, Joe Lieberman, would have been the best version of this option).
September 4, 2008 at 10:15 am
urbino
Their campaign so far suggests that they think they can do it largely by energizing the base. This worked for them in 2004, so it’s not an entirely irrational plan. But the political landscape has changed in the last four years
Most relevantly in that the party identification numbers have swung in a big way toward the Dems.
The other way to read the last week or so of the McCain campaign is that he understands that he needs to appeal to independent voters and that he believes Palin is the way to do so.
I see several problems with that, if that’s his theory, but perhaps the most important one is: wasn’t McCain supposed to appeal to independent voters?
September 4, 2008 at 10:16 am
urbino
I still think the safe play for McCain for VP would have been Portman
Natalie Portman? Now there’s a vpilf.
September 4, 2008 at 10:17 am
Ben Alpers
So Harris + Bettis > Swann + Bradshaw?
September 4, 2008 at 10:22 am
eric
So Harris + Bettis > Swann + Bradshaw?
You even have to ask?
September 4, 2008 at 10:58 am
bitchphd
“community organizers” are what they have in big cities, where Negros and Latinos live with all their damned problems.
Ayup. God, I hate those fucking people.
(The Republicans, I mean.)
(Also I stole the video for my site. Thanks.)
September 4, 2008 at 11:04 am
eric
stole the video
Hey, we don’t own Jay Smooth. Jay Smooth belongs to all of us.
September 4, 2008 at 11:07 am
urbino
Harris + Bettis > Swann * Bradshaw
Ayup. God, I hate those fucking people.
(The Republicans, I mean.)
Oh. I thought you were referring specifically to the Palins.
September 4, 2008 at 11:08 am
eric
Harris + Bettis > Swann * Bradshaw
Harris + Bettis > Swann ^ Bradshaw
OK, I recognize this joke is probably played.
September 4, 2008 at 11:11 am
SEK
There’s another Levi out there?
Over on Storm/Front, they’re upset that an “Alaskan mud” might end up in the White House, but the best reaction was to Bristol’s baby-daddy:
Levi? Oy gevalt.
September 4, 2008 at 11:29 am
silbey
Is anyone actually surprised about this?
I think there are quite a number of people. Quite a few folk I’ve read this morning are earnestly explaining how community organizers aren’t really bad people and that the Republicans are lying. This is the second-order kind of surprise, the “if only I explain it earnestly enough, they’ll stop doing it.”
Weren’t the Clintons really warning us that Barack Obama cannot win in November?
The argument I was getting from the Clintons was that the Republicans were going to do 2004 again and that only they were prepared to deal with it.
September 4, 2008 at 11:31 am
eric
“if only I explain it earnestly enough, they’ll stop doing it.”
No, it’s “if only I explain it earnestly enough, I’ll get more favorable media coverage than the demagogues did.”
September 4, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Jason B
Harris + Bettis > Swann ^ Bradshaw
The problem is that Bradshaw drags his side way down. I mean, he’s so dumb he couldn’t spell John McCain’s pet name for Cindy if you spotted him the “c,” the “u,” and the “n.”
September 4, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Sybil Vane
Harris + Bettis + Tomlin. Let’s not forget him on the good side of the equation.
September 4, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Ben Alpers
Just in case America couldn’t hear the dog whistle:
September 4, 2008 at 1:29 pm
In the clear. « The Edge of the American West
[...] (Thanks, Ben). [...]
September 4, 2008 at 2:16 pm
urbino
See, now that’s just gauche.
September 4, 2008 at 2:32 pm
andrew
I doubt very many people know what a community organizer does. It’s not good to be forced to explain it in this context, but it has to be done. It’s too bad it wasn’t done earlier as part of putting into context Obama’s background and biography. (Or maybe it was and I missed it – I remember hearing mostly about his law school experiences and after.)
September 4, 2008 at 2:35 pm
ari
I think the community organizer thing is a winner, particularly in the context of faith-based activism. And I think that Obama is just the guy to give the speech. It’s hard for me to imagine a more perfect set-up for him, really, to talk about his background, his faith, and his commitment to his community. Heck, if I were him, I might even give that speech early tomorrow morning.
September 4, 2008 at 2:38 pm
andrew
Obama is just the guy to give the speech.
September 4, 2008 at 2:39 pm
eric
Community organizers fight back.
September 4, 2008 at 2:43 pm
ari
Obama’s on O’Reilly soon, isn’t he? I think it’s safe to say there will be talk about organizing a community.
September 4, 2008 at 2:50 pm
andrew
Yes. The link in my last comment is to his press conference after filming the interview.
September 4, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Jason B
Just watched Andrew’s link. I can’t express just how happy I am to support an intelligent, articulate, and scrupulous human for president.
September 4, 2008 at 2:52 pm
ari
Is he on tonight?
September 4, 2008 at 2:52 pm
ari
Don’t forget “clean”, Jason. The man is undeniably very clean.
September 4, 2008 at 2:56 pm
eric
When does the Factor air?
September 4, 2008 at 2:56 pm
andrew
Is he on tonight?
That I don’t know.
September 4, 2008 at 2:57 pm
ari
Yup, tonight. As to when, you have a computer, right Eric?
September 4, 2008 at 2:58 pm
ari
Weeknights, 8 and 11 pm. And prepare to be disappointed by this interview, my friends.
September 4, 2008 at 3:00 pm
ari
Sorry, that link didn’t work. Take two.
September 4, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Voter registration data « The Edge of the American West
[...] 4, 2008 in history and current events by SEK Eric’s comment got me thinking about the effect new voter registration would have on the upcoming election. I [...]
September 4, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Vance Maverick
Ari @2:52:
…[H]e sets a great example for these young black kids and shows them that they can be intelligent and articulate.
Spoken by….Charles Barkley.
September 4, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Jason B
Right. I forgot clean. I guess the talking points haven’t completely penetrated yet.
September 4, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Megan
Hey, we don’t own Jay Smooth. Jay Smooth belongs to all of us.
Step back, Eric. You don’t understand what he means to me.
I’m kinda liking this quote.
September 4, 2008 at 5:16 pm
bitchphd
What I still find kind of astonishing is that she brags on her husband’s union ties, presumably in an attempt to appeal to blue-collar workers, *and* she disses organizing. Union people know from organizing.