When Bush was first elected (or, as some might say, “appointed”) as president in 2000, he was hailed as our first “CEO president”—someone whose background in business would presumably render him able to make prudent choices on behalf of the country.  The many failures of the Bush years make the folly of that assessment all too obvious.  In fact, given the recent melt-downs in the mortgage industry and the inability of American corporations to respond swiftly to the new demands of a global economy, the comparison may have been apt in ways that the pundits did not initially intend.

CEOs, with their grossly inflated salaries and well-constructed firewalls shielding them—like no one else—from the economic vagaries even of their own failures mean that they live in a highly rarified atmosphere, aloof and removed from the realities of most Americans’ everyday lives. And, in this respect, the shoe also fits the Bush foot.

Now we have a presidential candidate in Barack Obama who sees the world from the very different perspective of the grassroots.  Obama has often invoked his community organizing experience in Chicago in the 1980s as the grounding for his appreciation of the authentic struggles and triumphs of ordinary people.  In 1988, he published an article called “Why Organize?  Problems and Promise in the Inner City” in a magazine called Illinois Issues in which he discussed what he learned from community organizing.  As he then wrote: 

Organizing begins with the premise that (1) the problems facing inner-city communities do not result from a lack of effective solutions, but from a lack of power to implement these solutions; (2) that the only way for communities to build long-term power is by organizing people and money around a common vision; and (3) that a viable organization can only be achieved if a broadly based indigenous leadership — and not one or two charismatic leaders — can knit together the diverse interests of their local institutions.

This means bringing together churches, block clubs, parent groups and any other institutions in a given community to pay dues, hire organizers, conduct research, develop leadership, hold rallies and education campaigns, and begin drawing up plans on a whole range of issues — jobs, education, crime, etc. Once such a vehicle is formed, it holds the power to make politicians, agencies and corporations more responsive to community needs. Equally important, it enables people to break their crippling isolation from each other, to reshape their mutual values and expectations and rediscover the possibilities of acting collaboratively — the prerequisites of any successful self-help initiative.

This model of organizing has been the prototype upon which Obama has based his campaign.  He has followed the basic principles of organizing, which are to make people feel involved, to recognize and acknowledge each individual contribution, and, above all, to make people feel connected to something that is bigger than all of them —to create the sense that great things are being accomplished through the medium of collective action.  I, too, was a community organizer in Chicago at the same time as Obama (though I worked in a different part of the city and did not know him personally) and I, too, saw the magic that is made when people come together in the interest of a common cause: building a library, making a street crossing safe for children, challenging local politicians to serve their constituents’ interests.

Participating in the Obama campaign – every peripherally-- has reminded me of those experiences.  Even donating to the campaign brings an email “matching” you with someone who has made a similar donation, making you feel connected to the movement despite the relative isolation of the computer.  Photos posted of all the house parties held last week-end, showing folks here in Indianapolis using their cell phones to call voters in Texas, had the intended effect of making me feel as though I were part of that day, even though I wasn’t.  Organizing operates on the principle that doing things together is always better than doing them separately, whether it is the esprit de corps that is generated from folks going door-to-door at the same time, making phone calls together, collecting petitions or watching the elections returns as a group (as I did last night).  Organizing generates its own momentum, propelling people forward despite the set-backs along the way.

One of the great weaknesses of organizing is the fact that, for some organizers, the fight can be much more fun than the victory, the campaign more energizing than the task of administering a new program that can result from the efforts exerted through grassroots activism.  Urban landscapes all over the country are littered with the carcasses of local-level mobilizations that failed to meet their intended goals or, that, ironically, realized their aspirations but then faltered as bureaucratic realities set in. 

In this case, I am betting that if the Obama movement goes all the way to the nomination—and even to the White House—the inspiration and energy generated by this movement will not be so easily dissipated.  Moreover, the bonds being forged every day through the Obama campaign belie many of the funereal dirges of some years ago bemoaning the supposed lack of civic involvement (made most popular by Robert Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone).  People are ready to engage but they have to have something to engage with and to believe in.

Obama has created that excitement and that energy at the grassroots level in a way unlike any other political campaign in recent memory and maybe ever.   Our first possible community-organizer-President will see the world from the bottom up rather than from the top down.  And, many of us continue to believe that, ultimately, this will make all the difference.

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