The community organizer gambit

by: bloomingpol

Mon Feb 15, 2010 at 16:28:50 PM EST
I have always been interested in Obama's early work as a community organizer, probably because I came to realize that I have done some of that as well, organizing a Democratic town committee, persuading people to work on town committees, helping to start the farmers market, etc.  I never really thought about the ones who got involved because they had an agenda quite different from those who really wanted to accomplish a particular goal, maybe because they usually disappeared after the second or third meeting when they realized they were outnumbered, but I was taken by this argument about what Obama is doing with the health care meeting he is convening on the 25th.
Jonathan Chait says:

I still find it strange how little understood President Obama's political method is. The first person I know who identified it is Mark Schmitt, over two years ago. At the time, many liberals viewed Obama's inclusive rhetoric as a sign that he intended to capitulate the liberal agenda for the sake of winning Republican agreement. Schmitt disagreed. Obama's language is highly conciliatory, he wrote, but the method isn't:

"One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that's not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists -- it's a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict. It's how you deal with people with intractable demands -- put 'em on a committee."

Sometimes I am not sure my fascination with how people interact politically is healthy.  But I can't seem to help hoping I will find something I can use here in my little political world to make a difference.

My friend Bob Perry has a great signature line that I love:

"People often say with pride 'I'm not interested in politics.'
They might as well say 'I'm not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future or any future ...'
If we mean to keep control over our world and lives, we must be interested in politics."
Martha Gellhorn (1909-1998), American travel writer, novelist, and journalist.

h/t to NLinStPaul
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