You're tactful quotes really don't show the breadth of what was said but that's digressing. I don't think you get it. You see Obama is using his experience as a community organizer as saying he donated his time/life/career to the people. He didn't just help people get registered to vote. It makes me really saddened that people I would vote with think this way...

Ward Connely did hit it on the head though because there's hardly any jobs out there that know the true extent of whats capable of being a 'community organizer' the same could be people who donate their time for a halfway house, a relief clinic, etc. You see we try and help individuals. Politicians though refuse to see individuals in their system. It's extremely disconcerting when you try your absolute best to help someone and either the government makes it where you can help someone... or you haven't the means.

Community Organizers should be cherished... it's a selfless task and not a political one. Obama makes hardly any money, compared to the rest yet I think he's just as qualified. You should pick him apart for his political experience than Palin's because I really think your argument is flawed. Being a mayor of a town of 5-9thousand is nothing. I handled that many alone when I was in Houston over a month. Please attack them on the issues such as his tax system, his pro-choice platform, his refusal to drill.

If Palin just said an apology to people like me... I'd forgive her. Right now I'm just utterly confused why someone would belittle a group of people (like myself) that only try and help the communities they live in.

In West Texas, with our independent spirit, we don't really grasp what Community Organizers have done to our large Cities. You think these are not political entities, but unlike our charitable organizations which try and exist with as little government interference in their mission as possible, real Community Organizers THRIVE on keeping large throngs of potential voters active in everyting from "Stop Signs to Schools to Minimum Wages."

The point is I disagree with the policies being pushed by the community organizers being exposed today. I think they wrap their goals in populist memes like forclosures and the minimum wage, but they really don't have the individuals in their heart, just their agenda.

Anonymous you are trying to cast these organizers as people helping out in soup kitchens and half-way houses.

I don't see these types of charitable endavors in ACORN's list of campaigns, do you? Heck, the closest ACORN gets to Halfway Houses is to hire voter registration workers to sign up Frito Boy Crispula.

I think you are owed an apology from "Community Organizers" because they have performed identity theft on legitimate charitable endeavors to advance liberal and socialist agendas.

Maybe you should be more like Sarah Palin and fight this corruption and co-opting of legitimate, private, community organizations by these entrenched liberals.

Most of the problem here is the cryptic nature in which Mr. Obama takes credit for being a "community organizer" without really describing what that means or what he really did or accomplish as one. It is to be taken for granted that he was one and that it is not just to be commended it is to be taken seriously as a key qualification running the free world.

It isn't.

Expanding on this a bit, no one here would consider Lael Pitts over at Casa de Amigos just a "community organizer" and therefore worthy of contempt. She is the long-time Executive Director of a very important and successful social support program here in Midland. Every prominent Republican here in Midland is familiar with her and her organization and very much appreciate both. Half of them have probably served on the board over the last 30 years.

I really don't think that she is what people have in mind when they are hammering on the fuzzy "community organizer" label. In fact, I know it.

The reason this is getting hammered on is mostly because of what Mr. Obama did in his time as a "community organizer", which is a different type of organizing more along the lines of what Ward Connerly describes above.

The problem is that there is some collateral damage being created by the overlap in what each group calls "community organizers".

I have a Catholic friend who lives in Houston. She and her husband volunteered to help through their church to aid Katrina victims who came to stay at the Astrodome for a time.

The overall project was run by, I think, one of the big Baptist organizations either on the national level or close. I want to say it was the big Southern Baptist organization. She said the level of organization, the number of volunteers coordinated, and the logistics involved in getting people clothed, fed, medicated, entertained, counseled, etc. were all massive and handled almost flawlessly.

All of those that organized that massive operation both professional staff and volunteer staff we don't tend to call or think of as "community organizers" in the sense that Mr. Obama was a community organizer.

We don't just appreciate those people. In most cases we are those people.

Great expansion of my thought Site Admin. "Collateral Damage" is a good way to describe the hurt feelings of genuine people who consider themselves community organizers. I *am* one of those real community organizers and I perfer to push back against the Obama type, instead of getting my feelings hurt.

REAL Community Organizers assess needs in the Community and organize any and all resources to meet those needs one person, or family at a time.

OBAMA type Community Organizers assess their social and political goals and organize any and all low to middle income persons to create needs to be funded by the government with their organization, or surrogates, taking a cut.

Anonymous, I served with a community organizer: I knew a community organizer; a community organizer was a friend of mine. Anonymous, you're no community organizer.

(And that's a good thing.)

I applaud you for your charitable work. But, charity is not 'community organizing'. Community organizing is akin to organizing against another group-like a union against an employer.

The left is doing what they do best, trying to make you a victim based on your attributes, that being your past charitable endeavors. Buy what you have said, it appears you swallowed their hook.

The conservative right have their own "community organizers", but they tend to operate under the term, PACs; and the last major report I heard about one was when it was getting Tom Delay to resign from politics for channeling corporate funds to candidates. These conservative groups push their own agenda also, instead of helping the community without strings attached.

Stu:

True. But is anyone on either side calling this "community organizing" much less listing it as a qualification for the highest office in the land?

I know I don't. It is party building.

And party building was what Mr. Obama was doing more than true charitable works.

Stu, you tendentiously miss the point again--a 99% record.

There is a related evil. The United Way of America exists, as we know, to make one collection from people and dole it out to various charities deemed worthy. But UW used some of that money to lobby Congress. This is particularly noxious.

SA, shouldn't serving in public office be considered charitable work, since doing the tedious work of governing for the good of the PEOPLE with disregard for one's personal views would not be self-serving (although we all know that this just isn't the case these days).

Since public service should be considered a charitable cause, the organization of groups to facilitate the election of candidates with a particular agenda for the furtherment of that agenda is no longer charitable, but instead manipulative and controlling, especially considering that as a non-voting entity injecting funds into political election campaigns (PACs do not have children in schools and are not accorded a vote as an entity), they do not have a vested interest in any individual district or voting area (but as a group channeling funds to candidates across the nation the PACs influence elections).

Theo,

Ohh, I got a 99!!! Woo-hoo, top o' my class!!

I agree that the use of donations to a charitable cause to lobby government (or anything but help people in need) in any way is noxious (as much as I think accepting monetary funds from anything or one but a registered voter in the voting district itself by a candidate is noxious); but you don't explain how I missed the point. Please, o mighty T, explain to me what the point is. Please!!

And THE "community organizer" has already been "outed". He is Tom Delay, and he is still facing criminal charges for trying to circumvent campaign finance laws by using semantics to funnel corporate donations to candidates (a lot like Clinton and his what is "is" testimony).

While public office is honorable, it is not charitable. stu, I think you are confused about what it means, but not as much as anonymous. Your equating 'community organizer' to Tom Delay, what he was doing, is actually a much better comparison than anonymous equating it to volunteering at a soup kitchen.

The only way I would consider public office as charitable work would be if by taking office, you had to forgo a greater income, and that put the squeeze on you and your family. I don't think that happens much. Tony Snow, in his final months said that he was leaving the White House because he had to make more money, for his family, knowing he probably wouldn't be around to do that much longer and no doubt facing some big medical bills. I think there was some nobility in that.

Understandable, yes; noble, I'm not sold on that one.....yet.

And holding public office as a from of public service has not been honorable or charitable for some time now; rather, it has been a means to an end for most partisan politicians.

And T, your math in coming up with my 99% is a bit off there buddy. Would you like to track back and count the number of my posts in ratio to the number of my posts with which you don't agree, thereby coming up with a more accurate percentage (although I don't put much faith in your opinion of my posts). I think it will be a bit lower (although I won't be surprised to see that reevaluated as a 100% from you).

If you're getting paid, it ain't charitable. Hence "community organizer", of the Obama type, isn't charitable.