Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. That’s a far better qualifier than someone who was governor for 2 years.  

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    p>Actually, that’s an unfair comparison, since Obama is a United States Senator — for 140-something days out of 4 years.  

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    p>But that’s okay, he does have executive experience.  From his campaign.  Wait…what?

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    p>HONESTLY:  I would just avoid trying to defend the community organizer argument because you’ll never win.  If you explain like you explained above, you beg the question “and this is presidential qualification how?”  and only makes his experience look even worse for the job.  You thought Palin would erase the experience argument.  It didn’t.  You thought her kid getting pregnant would make her look like a hypocrite.  It didn’t.

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    p>Gosh, listen to Huff and just stick to McCain, because it’s like Palin’s got a bulletproof vest on.  The issues she could get hammered on don’t even seem to be registering with people right now.  

    • Sarah Palin is the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard!  And Alaska is really really close to Russia!

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      p>ROFLMAO!!!!

        • is that people are seriously making the arguments I mentioned as reasons why Palin has foreign policy and military experience.  I mean, take off your  partisan hat for just a moment — don’t you find that a tad ridiculous?  Can you answer that question honestly without mentioning any of the Democrats?  (I doubt it, but go ahead and prove me wrong.)

          • Of course in this thread, you are the person making the argument that Palin has foreign policy and military experience.   Set it up; knock it down.  Yeeha.

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            p>Here ya go:  does Ms. Palin have much military or foreign policy experience.  Not much, she manages the Guard. That wasn’t very tough.

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            p>Back to JoeTS real argument, and not your imagined one: i) she’s so far weathered the attacks so far; ii) the community organizer remark isn’t a particularly effective one to attack.

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            p>Look over there, TROOPERGATE, where she may have tried to get a trooper fired who, among other things, tasered a 10 year old.  Win, lose or draw before an ethics investigation.  He tasered a 10 year old for goodness sake.  Court of public opinion anyone?

              • the media is the one driving all these stories from every avenue of ridiculousness.

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                p>I wouldn’t be surprised to see a journalist write an outraged editorial in response to his own editorial printed a day before.  

                • Don’t you think the blame-the-media defense is as tired and lame as the ubiquitous, far left the-election-was-stolen cry after every election the Democrats lose?  Won’t independents see it that way?  

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                  p>Please.  If Republicans have a beef with the media, perhaps they should run better campaigns or hire better PR consultants.

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                  p>Gary, you’ve argued the Palin as snob argument isn’t going anywhere. I disagree.  Perhaps not for you, but it keeps coming up doesn’t it?  She really gave Democrats an opening there.  Rather than simply point out that she too is and has been engaged in her community as mayor, then governor, she dismissed not only the accomplishments of Barack Obama, but the cares and concerns of people who rely on community activists to stop foreclosures in poor and middle-class communities, and to focus attention on poor economic conditions there.

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                  p>And, of course, it has legs on the internet where, like it or not, people like us aren’t letting it go.

                •  

                  Gary, you’ve argued the Palin as snob argument isn’t going anywhere. I disagree.  Perhaps not for you, but it keeps coming up doesn’t it?  She really gave Democrats an opening there.

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                  p>Could be, but it’s hard to paint snob on a ‘poorly educated’, backwoods, gun totin’ mom of 5, husband of a blue collar snow mobile racer.  We’ll see if it has legs; I think it’s too early to conclude yes.

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                  p>For now, the detractors are pretty much throwing the kitchen sink at her from their mighty hot air machine, hoping for something to stick.

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                  p>

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                  p>

                • Could be, but it’s hard to paint snob on a ‘poorly educated’, backwoods, gun totin’ mom of 5, husband of a blue collar snow mobile racer

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                  p>Sure, but the GOP isn’t selling her like that.  She’s the arch-conservative, straight-talking, hockey-mom pitbull.  And the Democrats were, quite frankly, too afraid to paint her like that.  But now they don’t need to.

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                  p>The GOP paraded Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney on stage to whine about, of all things, east-coast elitism.  They had Fred Thompson whine about hollywood celebrities.  And now, Sarah Palin bemoans getting involved with your community.  I don’t think its tough for people to see a certain pattern of hypocrisy and self-serving rhetoric emerge from the GOP.

                  <

                  p>Especially when Democrats continue to hammer it home.

                • I don’t know what her image is yet, but it’s interesting that since the convention, there’s been some shift in the electoral picture.

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                  p>Example, start here with a general map

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                  p>Weak Blue North Dakota prior to the election, has shifted to a Republican advantage with bookmakers, with a bet on that state carrying Obama paying 5:2, and a with a bet on that state carrying McCain paying 1:4.

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                  p>Montana has shifted from weak GOP to a strong GOP.

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                  p>In a surprise (to me), NC has shifted to GOP, with a bet on that state carrying Obama paying 9:4, and a with a bet on that state carrying McCain paying 2:7.

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                  p>I think, in those states, that redneck, however you define it, plays well. The shift with gamblers’ odds (and you can question the bookmakers as prediction tool of course) might well be explained by a successful convention bounce, a VP that caught everyone’s attention with her redneck, gun totin’ ways.

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                  p>I’m not reading the same things you are to conclude at all that the snob label has any legs outside the left bank of the Charles River.

                • You have to spell it out:

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                  p>Rudy and Mittens are extrememly wealthy east-coast elites.
                  Thompson was a TV star and very lazy US Senator.

                  <

                  p>During Hurricane Gustav, McCain and his supporters made appeals for communities to organize and help their neighbors, then bashed community organizers the next day.
                  In the South, most community organizers are affiliated with churches and faith-based organizations.

                  <

                  p>Also, I doubt Palin is blue-collar as one of our RMG visitors said above. Her husband works for a foreign oil company and has a high-paying job. And I’m sure Miss Earmarks has made a little money here and there that’s not on the books. After all, she was a Director of Ted Stevens’ 527 group for 3 years. Ironically, the group’s name was ‘Excellence in Public Service’. So much for being ethical and a maverick.

                • is a union worker. Perhaps you are unaware of the pay scale of line workers in the oil industry. I have an uncle that puts up scaffolding in Alberta that makes well over $200K for 10 months work.  Oil industry labor, in remote places is dangerous work, and those workers are paid accordingly.  Are you suddenly against union workers?

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                  p>And she recruited and helped someone run against Ted Stevens when his ethical lapses arose.

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                  p>Kee

        • http://acorn.org/fileadmin/ACO…

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          p>Read ACORNS 2005 Annual Report

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          p>For 35 years, the neighborhood organizing drive has
          been the heart and soul of ACORN’s work. In 2005,
          ACORN conducted over 480 organizing drives in com-
          munities around the country. Each drive follows a similar
          model. An ACORN organizer, working with an organiz-
          ing committee of neighborhood residents, systematically
          doorknocks a defined neighborhood, engaging in one-on-
          one conversations with hundreds of neighborhood resi-
          dents. Organizers ask community members what issues
          they are concerned about; what makes them angry;
          and what their hopes and dreams are – for their family,
          for their community, for their city, and for their country.
          Organizers talk with residents about organizing to build
          power, and ask them to join the new local ACORN chap-
          ter that is being built in their neighborhood.
          Why do community residents join ACORN? Almost with-
          out fail, ACORN members say that it is because “no
          one ever came to my door and asked for MY opinion
          before.”

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          p>What’s a “defined” neighborhood?

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          p>With these qualifications Obama should be Emperor for Life!

          • …your link doesn’t mention Barack Obama except to say he was at the presentation of the RFK award to an Acorn member. Whoop dee doo.

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            p>I know it’s tough, but could you please make an effort to stay relevant?  

    • [Obama was] director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago’s far South Side. During his three years as the DCP’s director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.

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      p>It is honorable and valuable work serving his community. It speaks to his character and is impressive considering the multitude of other more lucrative, easier jobs a Columbia grad could land. No one is making the argument that anyone who did this in his twenties is now qualified to be President, but it is evidence of Barack Obama fighting for regular people and demonstrates his desire to be a public servant, that’s all. What is there to belittle about this? NOTHING.

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      p>Conversely, what was Sarah Palin doing at age 24? She was doing a bad impression of a sports anchor in Anchorage (YouTube clip).

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      p>Is being a community organizer for three years more impressive then being governor of Alaska? No. But that’s a false comparison that no one on the left is making. Yet, what Obama was doing at age 24 was certainly a hell of a lot more impressive than what Palin was doing at 24, so for her to devalue community organizing when she was busy trying to become a star makes her seem like snotty, entitled brat for whom grass-roots work and and community service is “beneath her”.

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      p>Hey, I don’t fault the 24-year-old Palin for wanting to transfer her beauty pageant reputation into a gig reading sports on the local news. I’m just saying that when you look at the accomplishments of Palin and Obama in parallel, it takes an audacious lack of self awareness on Palin’s part to ridicule Obama’s career.

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      p>Seriously, two years of being a governor is all she’s got. She’s only won one real election in her entire life and she got the running mate gig by appointment. She’s in no position to mock anyone without an overwhelming crush of irony.

      • not just a beauty pageant winner, so she wasn’t really doing an impression of a sports anchor.  She cared about sports.

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        p>And she’s got 6 years of being a mayor, and that year on the ethics board.

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        p>And it’s up in the air if Community Organizing is a good thing or a bad thing, especially if it indicates anything about Obama’s true motivations.  Yes, they help people with problems (even as they “rub raw the wounds of discontent”), but only because they are taught to serve the self-interest of poor people as a way to advance completely different goals, usually elitist, communist anti-government goals.

        • What the fuck do you know about Obama’s true motivations, whether it has to do with his faith in Jesus or his work as a community organizer, or any other facet of his history?  Are you suggesting that he got out of college and figured that a $10,000 a year job as a community organizer would propel him to the presidency, so that’s the only reason he did it?  In your world, it’s not possible that the skinny black kid with the funny name just wanted to give something back to the wonderful country that had made him what he was?

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          p>As for the rest of your post, you need to know that you make no sense whatsoever.  The ability to be both elitist and communist at the same time can only exist in the mind of a Republican – by now you’ve become so accustomed to cognitive dissonance that it’s easy for you to project it on to others…

          • No one is 100% altruistic. Of course there’s something in being an organizer for Obama. The same way John McCain had “other” motivations for being in the Navy. No doubt McCain loved his country and wanted to serve, but I’m sure he was chasing glory and looking to feed his ego – nothing wrong with that, it’s not like the guy’s a Buddhist Monk. And just as Obama might have wanted to make a name for himself, it’s clear that he also loved to empower people and serve the community.

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            p>Just about everybody has some self-invested hope for reward in anything we do. But to John Howard/they’s point, none of us here are mind readers, so what evidence do we have. At 24, Obama was Columbia grad working in NYC and could have made quite the comfortable living, but he decided to go to Chicago, work long hours for relatively low pay, drive a beat up jalopy, and by all accounts made impressive progress in the community and built up the organization leaving it far stronger than when he got there.  What motives can we infer from this? Probably many. But I don’t think getting asbestos out of a housing project and starting a college prep tutoring program show any evidence of the radical anti-government ascribed above.

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            p>In fact, people like JH/they can crap over Obama’s community organizing all they want, but when he and MCRD hurl made up invectives about imaginary motives with no evidence, it just shows how delusional some of our fellow BMG commenters are (btw, “The ability to be both elitist and communist at the same time can only exist in the mind of a Republican” is a great observation).

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            p>Show your work. If there’s evidence to say that Obama’s dominant motive was a radical communist antigovernment agenda, use it to support your argument. Otherwise, kindly waste your time at some place that cares like Red Mass or Free Republic.  

    • One thing is clear.

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      p>The McCain campaign has suffered from numerous reorganizations, it almost ran out of money, and it had to bend the campaign finance laws just to stay afloat. It’s had trouble figuring out who speaks for the candidate from its many lobbyists saddled with conflicts of interest. It couldn’t find a Vice Presidential candidate in a timely manner. It put up the wrong picture behind their candidate for his ill-written acceptance speech. McCain won the primary against opponents who defeated themselves for him.

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      p>Obama’s campaign has run smoothly. It has pulled in a huge number of contributors. It keeps good message discipline and it won from far behind against a skilled and able opponent.

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      p>So from the current evidence, McCain is a shitty executive, Obama a great one.

      Apologies for the profanity to those offended.

      • KBusch, while I agree with your summary of McCain’s missteps and that the Republican primary field imploded, how do you square your negative evaluation with the current evidence as measured in the polls?  

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        p>Doesn’t McCain’s being roughly tie in the polls — when he has Bush’s 30% approval rating to deal with, and a shitty campaign, and fewer donors, and less cash — suggest he’s not shitty?  

        • In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression with 35% unemployment, over 40% of the country still voted for four more years of Hoover.  This year, Republican rank-and-file voters continue to show that they’d rather not vote in their own best interests.  That doesn’t make McCain a good candidate, it just shows the GOP voters to be the fools that they’ve always been…

    • between democrat machine politica;l administrations. A classic example:ACORN. A vestige for political hacks to kill time, get a paycheck, and form the “network” for fellow political hacks to bamboozle poor, uneducated folks for a vote for a handout. Isn’t that just swell.

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      p>The icing on the cake, That is Barack Obama’s only claim to fame. His only self declared competency for the White House. He was a “community organizer”. Boris Putin would have him as OJ before breakfast. I want to see a towm meeting debate between Obama and mcCain every three weeks and perhaps a couple between Palin and Obama before November. Biden doesn’t have the time. He needs to go out and get a second job to pay off his bills.  

      • “That is Barack Obama’s only claim to fame. His only self declared competency for the White House. He was a ‘community organizer'”.

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        p>Pure insanity. Please take your meds; your inability to string together coherent, reality-based thoughts is scary.  

      • After 7 years of an administration that delights in spitting on the Constitution, having someone who actually understands the document seems important if we are to have a government based on law. Being a professor of Constitutional law is now a qualification for President, even if it wasn’t before.

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        p>After 7 years of a President who never had to actually succeed at or complete anything remotely difficult, being someone who had humble origins and managed to make his life into an exemplary success is even more of a qualification than it used to be.

        <

        p>I could go on, but you’ll have enough to do chewing on those.

  2. From Catholic Democrats, via Joe Klein:

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    p>

    Catholic Democrats is expressing surprise and shock that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech tonight mocked her opponent’s work in the 1980s for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. … Community organizing is at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching to end poverty and promote social justice.  

    So here is what Giuliani and Palin didn’t know: Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed–job training, help with housing and so forth–from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord’s work–the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the war in Iraq, which Palin described as a “task from God.”)

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    p>Klein:

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    p>

    This is what Palin and Giuliani were mocking. They were making fun of a young man’s decision “to serve a cause greater than himself,” in the words of John McCain. They were, therefore, mocking one of their candidate’s favorite messages. Obama served the poor for three years, then went to law school. To describe this service–the first thing he did out of college, the sort of service every college-educated American should perform, in some form or other–as anything other than noble is cheap and tawdry and cynical in the extreme.

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    p>Forward to all Catholic undecideds you know!

    • Psh, I make fun of protestants.  Big whoop.

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      p>Apparently Catholic Democrats are more Democrats than Catholics — outraged and offended and simply beside themselves over something marginally offensive.  

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      p>How many Pentecostals does it take to change a light bulb?
      A: 10.  1 to change it and 9 to pray against the spirit of darkness.  

      <

      p>ha.

      • Catholic Democrats really don’t care what she said, and Joe Klein is going BOOOO HOOO HOOOO.

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        p>That’s far more likely.

      • It’s not about being offended at a joke. She and Rudy, using humor, actually made the case that working at the community level for justice – a basic Catholic value for those who take their religion seriously – is a mysterious, pointless endeavor.  

      • It will be interesting to see what Catholics think of a fundamentalist presidential ticket that mocks Catholic principles. Assuming, of course, that the mass media reports it sufficiently that they know. And that the information is not suppressed by certain Catholic “leaders” who showed in 2004 that they are actually in bed with the right wing.

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        p>Should be interesting.

    • support for the infanticide that is partial birth abortion isn’t going to sway them one way or another.

  3. And there will probably be similar ones around the country (as there should be). But I don’t think it was meant to address the experience factor.

    • I was trying to continue the ONE Mass series posts  recognizing and honoring “real civic engagement”, and it got hijacked into the Palin debate. Woops!

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      p>I think I’ll start looking for an article that recognizes and honors “real civic engagement” of an effective small town Mayor, whose success depends very much on a skill set of a good community organizer.  

  4. City Life organizer Stephen Meacham wasn’t surprised by the Republicans’ comments. “Community organizers by their very nature are organizing the grassroots against power,” Meacham said, “and generally speaking power doesn’t like that.”

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    p>Mayors, on the other hand, along with aldermen and city emplyees working for the mayor, don’t work to undermine power unless it is corrupt.  It’s a very different motivation, to fight against power or to participate in government.  Obama himself rejected Community Organizing for politics, as did Hillary.

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    p>And this quote from the Globe article is very dubious:

    “Without organizers things don’t happen,” said Marvin Martin, 54, director of Dorchester’s Greater Four Corners Action Coalition. “Ideas often come from the community. People who organize bring ideas to the legislators and work with them to pass it. If they don’t understand that, I’m concerned with how they make decisions.”

    Not according to Alinsky.  The ideas that drive Community Organizers come from the top, and it’s really only one idea: communism.  They are then trained to find self-interest in their assigned community, and help them achieve that, like fixing potholes, putting in a stop light, etc.  Those might be the “ideas” that Martin is talking about, but they are only using those ideas (the wounds of discontent) to grow power and loyalty to the greater cause.  In contrast, when the city fixes a pothole or puts in a stop light, they are doing it because that is the job they are elected and paid to do, and it is supposed to be done democratically and fairly (but granted, it is too often done to win loyalty to that politician, or to the political system itself).  

    • I kinda doubt that, say, Bill Gates did any community volunteer work.  

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      p>He left school and made as much money as he possibly could, and is now giving a lot of it away.  Seems a far more beneficial venture, than if he had ‘selflessly’ gone into community service right out of school.

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      p>It’s probably unfair to judge anyone’s career choice, but I could make the argument that Obama, with his community organizing choice, wasn’t “being all he could be”.  Probably, during his years community organizing, he wasted a lot of his talents, choosing to influence, relatively speaking, only a few people.  That, compared to what he might have accomplished during those years as a capitalist, earning as much as possible and giving it away, or investing it into a business that employee people and produced a useful product.

    • Where do thes community activists and community organizers get their funding? Where does the $$$$ come from?

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      p>I have a suspicion that it is taxpayer funded. As a matter of fact: I heard on CBS yesterday or today that ACORN was taxpayer funded. Is that why I pay taxes. I thought my taxes were for schools , the CDC, NIH, national defense.
      Not to subsidize folks like Bill Ayres and his pals.

      • I bet the organization’s financial records are public. Come on, show some of that “self reliance” that conservatives are so famous for and stop expecting handouts of information from others!

      • You could just look at ACORN’s web site, down at the bottom of the page it says, “ACORN is a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization with national headquarters in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C.  To maintain independence, ACORN does not accept government funding and is not tax exempt.”

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        p>I got that info in about 30 seconds. Certainly less time than it took for you to shoot your mouth off and make yourself look like an idiot. I’ll never understand why, in the day and age of “the google”, people waste time asking idiotic questions that could be answered in minutes or less…

  5. I agree that Palin could have defended small town mayorship without taking a swipe at community organizing.

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    p>I read the Globe and Wikipedia articles, and I while I have a better understanding of what community organizers do (by description I, too, am a community organizer), I still don’t understand what the answer is to Palin’s charge — what are the responsibilities of community organizers?

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    p>Put another way, … and I’m not trying to diminish organizers, just trying to distill it… let’s say there was a community organization formed to address fixing potholes. The organizer gathers the citizens, educates them on the hazards of potholes, gathers signatures and schedules protests and testimony to the city council.

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    p>Let’s say the potholes get fixed, who is responsible for that?  The community organization, right? It was their hard work that brought the issue to attention.

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    p>Now, let’s say the potholes aren’t fixed. Who is responsible for that? Not the community organizers. It’s the government’s fault.

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    p>In reality, the government was responsible in both cases. Ultimately it is their decision. It is their responsibility. Don’t agree? Consider this…

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    p>The potholes get fixed (hooray community organizers) but in order to pay for the fix, the library is closed on Tuesdays or taxes are raised. Who is responsible for the library shutting down or the tax increase? Surely, it isn’t the community organizer as they didn’t have any say on how to pay for fixing the potholes. It must be the government’s fault.

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    p>That is the distinction Palin was making by “real responsibility” — responsibility for successes and for failures. Snarky and sarcastic? Sure. But, as a member of PTA herself, not “snobby, snotty, sneering, and elitist.”

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    p>

    • ….growing his organizations annual budget from $70K to $400K.  Seems like a real responsibility to me.  

      • So, raising money is a responsibility of a community organizer. And if they don’t produce, perhaps they lose their job. Obama’s particular responsibility then was the same as any capitalist — make money for the organization. Nothing wrong with that.

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        p>Let’s try to equate that with government, which also has the responsibility of raising revenue. It isn’t enough to show budget increases. It matters what they did with it.

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        p>Is it fair to say that the value of a community organization’s budget isn’t its size but its impact?

        <

        p>

        • …why don’t you look it up on google? I’m sure you can find out what his responsibilities were.

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          p>http://www.google.com/search?n…

          <

          p>I’m not even trying to argue that Obama was a good or bad community organizer, just that it’s clear to me Palin’s line of argument that community organizers have no “real” responsibility is silly.

          <

          p>What responsibilities did community organizers like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Susan B Anthony, abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, and John Hancock have? What responsibilities clergy who act as community organizers in their cities have? I’m not saying all community organizers are superstars or of Martin Luther King’s magnitude, just as the CEO of the corporation that runs the corner deli isn’t the same as the CEO of Bank of America, but they both have real responsibilities nonetheless.

          <

          p>It’s been said before that this was one Obama’s first gigs out of college as a 24-year-old. What responsibilities would you expect him to have?  From what I’ve read, Obama did an impressive job as a young community organizer.He wanted to do more so he left organizing for Harvard Law School.

          <

          p>Palin wants to talk about real responsibilities, what real responsibilities did she have as a TV sports reporter? Obama was facing “real” responsibilities when Palin’s responsibility was to make sure her hair and makeup looked good for the camera and to read hockey scores off the TelePrompTer.

          <

          p>Even if he was a bad organizer – so what? I know that can’t all of a sudden be a deal-braker for people who voted for Bush, who sucked at every job he had before becoming Governor of Texas.  And if Obama wasn’t that good at his job, why haven’t Republican opposition research dug up stories of his malfeasance?  It seems republicans got nothing and all they can do is mock an entry-level job the guy had before grad school.

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          p>At age 24, Ronald Reagan was doing play-by-play in Des Moines. John McCain  admits his 24-year-old self “generally misused his good health and youth” while he partied around Florida in his Corvette while drinking and dating strippers like “Marie the Flame”. But McCain’s “misused youth” didn’t impede him from becoming the accomplished man he is today. I’m not basing my vote on John McCain on his days of heavy partying, I’m basing it on what he’s done in his most recent jobs, the way he has conducted his campaign, and the positions he holds on the issues and how they compare and contrast with Bush’s positions.

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          p>The argument here isn’t that we should judge candidates on their 24-year-old selves and chastise them for not being prodigious geniuses, but that if peoeple are going to sit around and say that what Obama was doing at that age was a phony job where he was just dicking around (which it was not, it is quite honorable work), then they should put under the microscope what everyone else was doing at that age and ridicule it with the same degree of contempt that is being hurled at Obama.  

          • what real responsibilities did she have as a TV sports reporter?

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            p>Probably just showing up on time and reading the scores without making any FCC violations.  Do community organizers even have to show up, or is that optional?

      • He was able to sweet talk more donations and grants, and hired more organizers with the money.  What great practice for increasing the size of government!

        • I mean, Bush has done a great job sweet-talking the Chinese into owning more and more of our debt.  While I sometimes wonder what he’s promised them in return for bailing his sad ass out on a regular basis, I do agree that he’s promised them more than Obama would.

        • I guess the same logic can be applied to the John and Cindy McCain Foundation and the Hensley Family Foundation.

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          p>Growing organizations that help people, like, say a church-based grassroots advocacy group, is obviously bad for our communities.  

          • But if we need advocacy groups, I agree with Gary that it is what is done with the budget that matters, not merely the fact that he grew the budget.  The fact that you apparently equate growing the budget with achievement itself is pretty illuminating of your mindset.  Do you get paid by government grants too?

          • I know you’re addressing ‘they’ but you’ve made my point precisely.  

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            p>Cindy (Hensley) McCain earned/inherited a bunch of money.  Now, she could have gone to work in community service, but instead, the family grew the business.  Then, in 2001 they took some of the cash and created the Hensley Foundation.

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            p>I take the moral of the story to be: leave school and earn as much money as you possibly can, because the wealth and status that you achieve will yield far more results than some wet-behind-the-ears, pump up my ego volunteer could ever accomplish right out of college.

            • Cindy McCain, Bill Gates or Barack Obama?

              <

              p>You make the argument above that obama “wasted his talents” as a community organizer and people like Bill Gates and Cindy McCain have made a bigger impact than any thing Obama has done because of the money they’ve given away. Well, few people can accomplish the “beneficial ventures” that can be accomplished by the President of the United States.

              <

              p>This is about the long tail. Maybe Obama could have done more at age 24, but my guess is that Palin and McCain could have, too. But by doing more at 24, it might have cost him the opportunity to do what he is doing at 47. If Obama was not a community organizer, he may never have become a politician and probably never would have been the Dem nominee. Not to mention, if who knows what Obama would have done if he went out seeking just money. He might have been a thoroughly mediocre entrepreneur or perhaps an excellent lawyer, but he wouldn’t be making Cindy McCain or Bill Gates cash.

              <

              p>This what if game is silly. If Barack Obama becomes president, then it’s hard to imagine that he could have done anything differently to have a greater impact.  And neither of us have a crystal ball, so we don’t know who Obama would be right now if he hadn’t been an organizer. Jeez, maybe he’d be an English professor or a journalist. Maybe he would have moved to Miami and got hit by a bus? I mean, maybe if you, gary, had a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering you could have created a multi-billion dollar tech business that fueled the Massachusetts economy.

              <

              p>Community organizing was one step Obama took in becoming the Dem nominee; not bad results for “some wet-behind-the-ears, pump up my ego volunteer”. That’s something Bill and Cindy’s money can’t buy them.

          • do you see the question mark.  I think it’s pretty hard to go back 25 years and look up the Illinois state budget on-line don’t you?

            • I forgot, facts need not apply and anything is fair game when there’s a question mark after it. Kinda like when PJ put a question mark in the title of his “Bristol Palin raped” post.  

              • and social services are often paid for by the government.  So it is a germane question, unlike the Bristol Palin diary you mention.  When I saw you post that, it was the first thing I thought of as well.  Where did the extra $330k come from?  It is a germane question no?

                • So look it up. I can’t produce an answer out of thin air.

                  <

                  p>But it seems to me that MCRD would rather not look up the answer, on the chance that he is wrong, so that he can continue to harp on his “outrage” that Obama was supposedly a lazy P.O.S. that bilked the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in his early Chicago days.

                  <

                  p>MCRD should take the personal responsibility and initiative to bring a few facts into the discussion before he lazily hurls around convenient accusations.  

    • As the recipient of a hugely disproportionate share of federal largess, Alaska does not have to make as many of these tough decisions between potholes and libraries as Massachusetts or Michigan.

  6. for Liberal activism but with a paycheck?  Of course he’d organize against the abolishment of the income tax with the gimme crowd.  They’d lose their free ride.

      • Conservative activism means you start a business and hire people and produce something of value.

        <

        p>Liberal activism means you ask conservative activists for donations.

        • …anti-abortion activism, anti-Same Sex marriage activism, the NRA, Focus on the Family, Creationists, The Club for Growth, etc “hire people and produce something of value” contrasted with left-leaning activist groups?

          <

          p>And do you mean to say that these groups don’t actively ask fro donations? Please.

      • stated in this diary.  Which brings me to the point, why doesn’t Obama say he headed a faith based organization instead of Community Organizing.  Does he fear alienizing his base?

            • …back in 1984 he was known as a “Community Organizer” by trade? I dunno. It doesn’t seem more complicated than that. Plus, he already made the link between his community organizing and faith based initiatives:

              <

              p>

              You know, faith based groups like East Side Community Ministry carry a particular meaning for me. Because in a way, they’re what led me into public service. It was a Catholic group called The Campaign for Human Development that helped fund the work I did many years ago in Chicago to help lift up neighborhoods that were devastated by the closure of a local steel plant. Now, I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious household. But my experience in Chicago showed me how faith and values could be an anchor in my life. And in time, I came to see my faith as being both a personal commitment to Christ and a commitment to my community; that while I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I went out and did the Lord’s work.

              <

              p>

  7. Amusing, all the kiddies running around with their hair on fire, disingenuously claiming that Gov. Palin took an unfair swipe at their nominee’s stint as a community organizer.

    <

    p>On Monday, fully two days before Mrs. Palin gave her acceptance speech, Mr. Obama said, in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper:

    <

    p>

    “My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,”

    <

    p>So, the fully informed listener is now left to ponder:

    <

    p>Was Sarah Palin really taking a cheap shot at Barack Obama?

    <

    p>Or was she merely responding to one?

  8. And that is a matter of fact—whether you like it or not, like her or not, or have the opinion that she is a rhube.

    <

    p>And that is what McCain and Palin are going to bludgeon Obama/Biden with.

    <

    p>Get used to it—-and get used to both of McCain’s and Ppalin’s mugs. You’re going to be looking at them fo a long, long time.

      • I’M SHOCKED!

        <

        p>Not one Palin accomplishment offered up by any of the Pro-McCain/Palin/Bush crowd.  

    • Thanks so much for the laugh line of the evening. The idea that the part-time Mayor of a remote northern village and Governor of a state with a population far less than metro Boston is in any way comparable to Obama is ludicrous. She could barely graduate from college. He was President of the Harvard Law Review.  She, as I said, was the part-time Mayor of a village. He was a state Senator in Illinois for years, as well as an attorney and law professor. Vote for George Bush with lipstick and her running mate, the ancient man with no idea how to solve our problems, if you like. Perhaps her religious fanaticism appeals to you, or maybe you like her plan to cut taxes for those who earn over $5 million per year, or maybe you think as she and McCain do that we should stay in Iraq indefinitely. In the meantime, thanks so much for keeping the laugh lines coming. You are the best.  

      • I only say this because that I can understand a musician being incredibly altruistic, whereas an attorney would be more amenable to looking at things through a more pragmatic lens.

        <

        p>I distrust politicians. Most are untrustworthy and would throw their entire families under a bus for a higher elective office. It’s a charcter defect. That said:

        <

        p>Obama has never done anything with his life. He went to college, then law school, then was editor of the law review? Bob, you’re kidding me—-right. In the grand scheme of things, that’s like saying he picked up papers on rte 128 for the DPW for ten years. There are surgeons and doctors at Childrens Hosp that work 24/7. There are folks at the Pine Street Inn that work long hours for nothing. There are missionaries overseas who expose themselves to untold dangers. There are cops and firefighters that risk life and limb and put their lives on the line, perhaps not daily—-but often enough. people who SACRIFICE. People who put themselves before others. People who only ask for a decent days pay and often no pay at all, or to do what is humane. Obama was a state and then federal legislator? So what” So he could kiss Tony Rezco’s backside for a sweetheart deal for his mans? Michelle Obama has a 317K/Yr job for what—-running her mouth. How about the doctors and nurses, discharge planners, social workers, and pastoral counselors at the very same hospital. What do they make? The same people who save lives and comfort and care for the dying and their families. Bob—please spare the BS. I was born at night, but not last night. I have had the privilege in my several professional lives to me intimately aware of “what really goes on behind the scenes, who the cast of actors are, who has their hand out, who will pay and who won’t, who is stealing what and how much, where the quid pro quo is, etc, ad nauseum.

        <

        p>None of this is in defense of any other hack. No doubt that McCain has done his share of crappy deals, and no doubt that Palin has a lot to learn and is guilty of her share of issues. But on the grand scale of things, I can live with a man who was willing to sacrifice his life and liberty for his country. I can live with a man who on most occasions wants to stop government from pissing away tax payers dollars. rather than frittering away money to keep the poor and uneducated enslaved (although I detest his immigration views) I can live with a man who cherish’s and honors his country, rather than pander to a crowd of malcontents that perceive their country with contempt. I can live with a woman who entertains the idea that blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice may yield a reward, even though it may be meager. I am able to sleep better at night knowing that the two republican candidates have a sense of honor, that McCain is willing to take a bullet, that both candidates accept the US Constitution as something other than an evolving paradigm. I can relate to McCain/Palin. On the other hand, I cannot relate to Obama/Biden. My perception of Obama is as an opportunist who has never done a days hard labor in his life. Biden is just loathesome. We al look at “our” guys throgh rose colored glasses. I periodically take my glasses off, because I know the warts are there and I want to see them to remind myself that my guys “don’t shit chocolate ice cream”. I can think of several folks who are democrats that would be just as good as Mccain/pain. Unfortunately, the DNC  and the manner in which the democratic party presently chooses candidates shunted them aside. The Clinton’s were as culpable as anyone and let’s not forget the ambulance chaser( which remarkably James Sokolove now refers to himself). BTW—you want to look at folks who give more back than they take: Deborah Sirotkin–(Amber Paw) a contributor of this site. Barack Obama  & Joe Biden aren’t in the same league.

        <

        p>So——- I’m glad I add levity to your day. There is much we all should be gladfull for—and I am proud that I make your day a bit brighter.

        <

        p>And just as a closing aside. I have the express fortune of reading almost on a daily basis, intelligence briefings from many sources. It would be prudent for many folks here to really get an understanding of what is going on in our world from many perspectives. It’s really worth it.

        <

        p>But what do I know?      
           

        • And just as a closing aside. I have the express fortune of reading almost on a daily basis, intelligence briefings from many sources.

          <

          p>[Oh. My. God. He thinks he has access to intelligence briefings!]

          <

          p>By “intelligence briefings”, MCRD, do you mean “World Net Daily”?

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