What Makes Obama Run? (another deep backgrounder; this one from 1995)

[Wretched Excess]

this is a puff piece of deeply gag-worthy dimensions . . . but it provides some interesting
insight as to what he was up to before he staggered onto the national scene during that speech in
2004.

and we are getting a better and better idea of what a community organizer does;  they
register minorities to vote.  in what way does that qualify one to be president?  and if his
most notable accomplishment to date is getting carol moseley-braun elected to the senate,
then he is a truly undistinguished individual.

What Makes Obama Run?

Lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author Barack Obama doesn't need another career. But he's entering politics to get back to his true passion--community organization.

When Barack Obama returned to Chicago in 1991 after three brilliant years at Harvard Law School, he didn't like what he saw. The former community activist, then 30, had come fresh from a term as president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, a position he was the first African-American to hold. Now he was ready to continue his battle to organize Chicago's black neighborhoods. But the state of the city muted his exuberance.

"Upon my return to Chicago," he would write in the epilogue to his recently published memoir, Dreams From My Father, "I would find the signs of decay accelerated throughout the South Side--the neighborhoods shabbier, the children edgier and less restrained, more middle-class families heading out to the suburbs, the jails bursting with glowering youth, my brothers without prospects. All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we've done to make so many children's hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right their moral compass--what values we must live by. Instead I see us doing what we've always done--pretending that these children are somehow not our own."

Today, after three years of law practice and civic activism, Obama has decided to dive into electoral politics. He is running for the Illinois Senate, he says, because he wants to help create jobs and a decent future for those embittered youth. But when he met with some veteran politicians to tell them of his plans, the only jobs he says they wanted to talk about were theirs and his. Obama got all sorts of advice. Some of it perplexed him; most of it annoyed him. One African-American elected official suggested that Obama change his name, which he'd inherited from his late Kenyan father. Another told him to put a picture of his light-bronze, boyish face on all his campaign materials, "so people don't see your name and think you're some big dark guy."

Obama, running to be the Democratic candidate for the 13th District on the south side, was also told--even by fellow progressives--that he might be too independent, that he should strike a few deals to assure his election. Another well-meaning adviser suggested never posing for photos with a glass in his hand--even if he wasn't drinking alcohol.

"Now all of this may be good political advice," Obama said, "but it's all so superficial. I am surprised at how many elected officials--even the good ones--spend so much time talking about the mechanics of politics and not matters of substance. They have this poker chip mentality, this overriding interest in retaining their seats or in moving their careers forward, and the business and game of politics, the political horse race, is all they talk about. Even those who are on the same page as me on the issues never seem to want to talk about them. Politics is regarded as little more than a career."

Obama doesn't need another career. As a civil rights lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author, he already has no trouble working 12-hour days. He says he is drawn to politics, despite its superficialities, as a means to advance his real passion and calling: community organization.

Obama thinks elected officials could do much to overcome the political paralysis of the nation's black communities. He thinks they could lead their communities out of twin culs-de-sac: the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation--which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to "move up, get rich, and move out"--and the equally impractical politics of black rage and black nationalism--which exhorts but does not organize ordinary folks or create realistic agendas for change.

Obama, whose political vision was nurtured by his work in the 80s as an organizer in the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Gardens, proposes a third alternative. Not new to Chicago--which is the birthplace of community organizing--but unusual in electoral politics, his proposal calls for organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies that create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and that forge alliances with other disaffected Americans. Obama thinks elected officials--even a state senator--can play a critical catalytic role in this rebuilding.

Obama is certainly not the first candidate to talk about the politics of community empowerment. His views, for instance, are not that different from those of the person he would replace, state senator Alice Palmer, who gave Obama her blessing after deciding to run for the congressional seat vacated by Mel Reynolds. She promised Obama that if she lost--which is what happened on November 28--she wouldn't then run against him to keep her senate seat.

What makes Obama different from other progressive politicians is that he doesn't just want to create and support progressive programs; he wants to mobilize the people to create their own. He wants to stand politics on its head, empowering citizens by bringing together the churches and businesses and banks, scornful grandmothers and angry young. Mostly he's running to fill a political and moral vacuum. He says he's tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum and from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because there's no agenda, no concrete program for change.

While no political opposition to Obama has arisen yet, many have expressed doubts about the practicality of his ambitions. Obama himself says he's not certain that his experimental plunge into electoral politics can produce the kind of community empowerment and economic change he's after.

"Three major doubts have been raised," he said. The first is whether in today's political environment--with its emphasis on media and money--a grass-roots movement can even be created. Will people still answer the call of participatory politics?

"Second," Obama said, "many believe that the country is too racially polarized to build the kind of multiracial coalitions necessary to bring about massive economic change.

"Third, is it possible for those of us working through the Democratic Party to figure out ways to use the political process to create jobs for our communities?"

Much More Here

[DixieBelle]

I'm still waiting for someone to show me how Obama "reached across the aisle" and solved problems. Back up your work Barry! 

I find that by and large, people fall into a few categories when it comes to supporting a candidate. You have your zealots who cannot be convinced otherwise (also known as the strident majority which is a misnomer because they are in fact, a minority) you also have your independents who are squishy and malleable (also known as sheeple) and then you have everyone else which I think is the real majority. These are everyday Joes who just want to live their lives in relative peace and comfort. They also have extremely good B.S. detectors and won't fall for the stuff Barackstar!'s minions are peddling. Or Hillary, Or McCain for that matter.....

These people are the ones who control the outcome regardless of what the zealots think. These are also the people who are loathe to answer exit polls and may in fact say whatever answer they feel will extricate them from the pollster.

People are mystified when "sure things" like a Gore landslide or Kerry win don't materialize. I'm not. I'm counting on those Everyday Joes to listen, study and contemplate and then go into the voting booth guided by the greater good instead of zealotry or "me too-ism".

November will either prove me wrong or make me happy. We'll see.

[Wretched Excess]

I'm still waiting for someone to show me how Obama "reached across the aisle" and solved problems. Back up your work Barry! 

I find that by and large, people fall into a few categories when it comes to supporting a candidate. You have your zealots who cannot be convinced otherwise (also known as the strident majority which is a misnomer because they are in fact, a minority) you also have your independents who are squishy and malleable (also known as sheeple) and then you have everyone else which I think is the real majority. These are everyday Joes who just want to live their lives in relative peace and comfort. They also have extremely good B.S. detectors and won't fall for the stuff Barackstar!'s minions are peddling. Or Hillary, Or McCain for that matter.....

These people are the ones who control the outcome regardless of what the zealots think. These are also the people who are loathe to answer exit polls and may in fact say whatever answer they feel will extricate them from the pollster.

People are mystified when "sure things" like a Gore landslide or Kerry win don't materialize. I'm not. I'm counting on those Everyday Joes to listen, study and contemplate and then go into the voting booth guided by the greater good instead of zealotry or "me too-ism".

November will either prove me wrong or make me happy. We'll see.

unless hillary can pull off a miracle on the same scale as bringing vince foster back to life, november is probably going to boil down to The BarackStar vs. mccain (nickname pending ).  that will be a pretty stark choice between "obviously incredibly qualified", and "obviously totally unqualified, but, hey, he's black.  wouldn't that be neat?".

and I think it could go either way.