The Year of the Organizer

In California,  Hillary Clinton's lead over Barack Obama is narrowing. The Los Angeles Times today even says the primary is now dead even.  The same is true in other states where Clinton was leading, but where now the race is very close. Although some of Obama's momentum no doubt comes from voters watching the debates and from high-profile endorsements (like Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, and, yesterday, Maria Shriver), it is also due, in large measure, to Obama's grassroots campaign, which has recruited  organizers from community groups, enviro groups, unions, and other activist organizations. They, in turn, have enlisted tens of thousands of volunteers and trained them in the skills of community organizing. Kelly Candaele and I examine this phenomenon in our article, "The Year of the Organizer," in The American Prospect.

Obama was a community organizer in Chicago for three years.  Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley in 1969 on the legendary organizer, Saul Alinsky, even interviewing him several times.  John Edwards spend much of the past two years working with ACORN and labor unions to promote campaigns to raise state minimum wages and adopt local living wage laws. The mainstream media still doesn't understand how to report on grassroots community organizing, and the growing effectiveness and sophistication of the nation's community organizing groups.  Hopefully, this election year will raise the visibility of community organizing and even inspire more young people to think about organizing as a career.  Just think what it would mean to have a former community organizer in the White House. As we write in our American Prospect article: "Obama knows that he will have to find balance between working inside the Beltway and encouraging Americans to organize and mobilize to battle powerful corporate interests and congressional in-fighting. But if Obama wants to be a champion of change, he'll need to redefine the role of president as organizer-in-chief."

Peter