Community Organizer in Chief?

Excerpted from Mary Sanchez:
It was a mistake for the McCain camp to dismiss Obama’s days as a community organizer as a bunch of airy-fairy nonsense. Obama has clearly learned how to motivate people, even if his style seems overly naive. At the top of his Web site is this quote from Obama: “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

OK, that sounds puffy nice, so easy to mock. Except that most people gravitate to goodwill if approached right. We’re a nation that put the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series on best-seller lists, for goodness sake. What most people tend not to have readily available, however, are the political connections and savvy to change things they dislike about their neighborhoods, city governments and workplaces. Community organizing gives them that.

The Obama campaign has drawn a lot of people into the fold who had never been involved in politics. People found themselves in leadership roles, planning strategy, with access to voter rolls online — and they found themselves being held accountable for what they accomplished. That’s a far different concept than giving someone a sign to stand on street corner with on Election Day.

Community organizing believes that government should be of the people, by the people and for the people. You can’t get much more patriotic or democratic than that.

And I think we'll make that the last word on the 2008 presidential election. Onward.