That settles it--the "community organizer" barbs will be McCain/Palin's downfall...

[Bicoastal]

This was the low point of a very low evening: Giuliani and Palin taking an unwarranted cheap shot at community organizers. Not Barack Obama's WORK as a community organizer, mind you, and not even Barack Obama's particular community. They went big.

According to them, community organizers in general are a bunch of lazy, whining fools who don't accomplish a fraction of the good of a small-town mayor--make that a VERY small-town mayor who likes to go into the local library and ban books.

So let's see--who does this antagonize?

Women, for one. It wasn't the government or elected officials who got the drive for the 19th amendment off the ground. Jane Addams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony are directly responsible for Sarah's current position as presumptive Vice Presidential candidate. If anything lights a fire under Hillary Clinton's pantsuit this election season, it'll be the systematic trashing of her heroes. And where Hillary goes, Bill will follow. And that's bad news for the McCain/Palin conglomerate.

Black people, for another. Remember the civil rights movement? John McCain, for some odd reason, touted John Lewis as one of the people whose advice he would depend on the most while in office. BS, of course, but he said it. Now guess what Rep. Lewis started his career doing? In fact, most of the disenfranchised minorities of this country have depended on community organizers to help them through tough times--does the name Cesar Chavez ring a bell?

But I'm sure the mayor of a small town could have done all that. Well, kiss the Latino vote goodbye...

Union members--oh, you thought only women and minorities would be on this list? Every sacred cow in the Labor movement counts as a community organizer--from Samuel Gompers to John L. Lewis to Walter Reuther. Remember those blue-collar, working class white people in Pennsylvania and Ohio that Obama is having trouble with? This is a perfect time to re-introduce them to Obama's early days on the South Side of Chicago, when he came into to contact with hundreds of men and women who been laid off from the factories, victims of Reaganomics. And then, cue Sarah Palin's nasal drone...bingo!

And while we're at it, let's at Anti-communists...Lech Walesa! Just in case you thought all community organizers were lefty commie pinkos--this guy took on the Evil Empire and WON! Could a small-town mayor do that--even if her small town was precipitously close to the East Coast of Russia?

But never fear. Obama's team is already on this new angle--somebody here recently posted a Plouffe e-mail released tonight emphasizing this outrageous new attack by the McCain campaign. Within weeks--days?--there will be ads galore in every demographic you can imagine. People in these positions don't like be patronized--many of them do an awful lot of work for very little pay and less recognition, but because they actually CARE about the community in which they live. People listen to them when they endorse a particular politician or slam another. And not of all them are Democrats--yet.

Ms. Palin is one small-town gal who's about to get a re-education in what exactly it is a community organizer does--they stand up to the entrenched corporate fat cats hogging all the wealth, resources, and glory, handing down only smug condescension in return for their trouble. Before tonight, Sarah Palin was a nobody; now, she's everything these community organizers and their respective communities despise.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

1. Community organizing is the heart, soul & cornerstone of democracy.

And cynicism is the first refuge of the damned.

[lib2DaBone]

2. also... the "Obama is only worried about rights for Al Que ida"

remark was waaay over the top. From this speech it's clear that no one is "White" enough for their liking and that the only good white people are her Fundy Church disciples. Sick puppies.. all of them.

[quantass]

3. yea they made a serious Blunder by putting down Comm. Organizers...its a large opportunity

that Obama can and should use against them because this is what it is really is all about for regular people...very interesting mistake the gop made tonite.

[opihimoimoi]

4. The GOP don't get it...Failin Palins Speech Team wrote her text...they fucked it up

went too far re comm orgzrs....now they feel the fall out

[H2O Man]

5. Really good!

"Community organizer" is one of the code words that the republican machine uses to identify those grass roots "trouble-makers" who oppose the their plans to exploit communities across the country.

[adamuu]

6. agreed. what does this say to

Den parents
Volunteers
Big brothers/sisters
Mentors
Church organizers
Soup kitchen organizers

Many people, especially good parents, are involved in these programs, if they can afford a few hours a week. We try to teach our children about their civic responsibilities and the importance of a healthy community.

Republican say such efforts don't count. It's a steaming pile of shit on America's doorstep.

[progressive_realist]

7. I think they just opened up another front in the culture wars

That will prove to be their undoing. They attacked the very idea of grassroots democracy, and also exposed the core Republican value that helping others is something to be scorned.

I hope that the responses to their attack make it abundantly clear to Americans that these people are antidemocratic and adhere to a phony Christianity that ignores the teachings of Jesus and resembles instead the Pharisees of the New Testament. This is a grand opportunity for the Democrats to define themselves publicly as the party that believes in people working together and helping one other and to clarify that church groups working on these principles belong on our side of the divide, not the Republican side. We may never get the fundamentalists, but the Republicans just attacked many of their own who are non-fundamentalist Christians.

The attacks on women, minorities, and union members are odious, but carry no cost to the Republicans because those groups already strongly favor the Democrats. The overreach comes because they inadvertently attacked church activists in the same breath, and many of those are currently Republicans or independents.