Origins of the Obama Machine

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4037/origins_of_the_obama_machine

November 11, 2008

Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers movement brought community organizing strategies into the electoral and legislative arena, writes Randy Shaw, in this excerpt from his new book, Beyond the Fields

By Randy Shaw

During the United Farm Workers’ critical decade of growth, from 1966 to 1976, farmworker activists became experts in conducting voter registration among low-income and minority voters, and operating get out the vote (GOTV) drives to boost turnout in traditionally low-voting, working-class neighborhoods. The UFW responded to political attacks from growers by adopting innovative approaches for almost every type of electoral campaign. These strategies brought the union victories in statewide initiative contests, legislative fights and races for public office—and continue to set the course for today’s progressive election campaigns.

In 1966, the farmworkers movement had no more experience with politicians and elections than it had with boycotts. Cesar Chavez’s previous job as an organizer for the Community Services Organization had included voter registration drives, but the CSO did not make political endorsements or engage in partisan electoral work.

The UFW did have one experienced hand, however: Fred Ross Sr., who had become a legendary electoral organizer after running Edward Roybal’s winning campaign for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 1949. Roybal, who was president of CSO, was the first Mexican-American to win a Los Angeles city council election in more than 70 years, a victory described as marking “the birth of Latino politics in California.”

Ross used the same painstaking approach to voter registration and GOTV in the Roybal campaign that he later brought to the UFW’s first representation election at the DiGiorgio ranch in 1967, and his methods would soon become central to the union’s grassroots electoral approach. Using Ross’s lessons as a starting point, UFW activists were not deterred by their lack of financial resources or political experience; in fact, these circumstances forced them to pursue innovative electoral and legislative strategies.

Not all of these efforts succeeded, but by “pushing all kinds of buttons” and being willing to “try something else,” the UFW developed a model for grassroots voter outreach to Latino and other low-income and minority voters that has spearheaded winning progressive campaigns in subsequent years.

California’s 1968 Democratic presidential primary put Chavez and the UFW on the state and national political map. New York senator Robert F. Kennedy was a staunch ally, whose public support for Chavez and the farmworkers during Senate hearings in the fields in 1966 had greatly boosted national sympathy for the union, especially among Catholics. Chavez developed a close personal bond with Kennedy and considered it “heroic” that the powerful senator had publicly embraced the UFW without asking anything in return.

FULL story at link.

[skooooo]

1. I'm so glad our next President..

...wont be from some political dynasty that has acquired wealth over 3 or 4 generations.