In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

-Alexis de Tocqueville

Over the last few weeks I have grown increasingly interested in the community organizing aspects of the Obama campaign’s ground game. I have no idea how history will record what has happened in communities all over this country over the last couple of years, but it seems to me that it is as responsible as anything else for the success of the campaign. But like most things that are new and don’t involve the rich and powerful, it’s happening under the radar of the MSM and pundit class.

Of course, alot of this comes from Obama’s history as a community organizer. But relatively speaking, that was only for a short period of his life. The person who has brought the skill and experience to this aspect of the campaign more than anyone else is a man by the name of Marshall Ganz. Here’s a short video where Ganz ties his previous work to that of the Obama campaign.

As so much of the news focuses on pro-America vs anti-America and the divisions the McCain/Palin campaign is trying to foster, I continue to be amazed at the wonderful stories that are being cataloged at the ground level of people coming together. We don’t often hear these stories in the news, but yesterday, Amar Bakshi shared one in the Washington Post with How W. Va. Democrats Came to Terms with Obama’s Rise.

At the center of the story is Waneta Acker, an 88-year-old woman who has run Democratic headquarters in Wheeling, West Virginia for the last twenty years. During that time, the small, local black community had not been involved in politics. That changed when Obama secured the nomination in June and some black people started showing up at headquarters to volunteer. But she got a preview in April:

Change suddenly arrived on April 12. That day, at the nearby Carpenters Union, supporters of Barack Obama staged a coup of sorts.

It was the Ohio County Democratic Party’s monthly meeting…

In place of the dozen or so participants Acker expected, at least 50 Barack Obama devotees showed up, clad in blue T-shirts, baseball caps, and buttons blaring: “PROGRESS.”

“Who are these people?!” Acker demanded. She didn’t know them, “And that’s unusual because I know gillions of people.”

Stranger still, they were “mostly dark, black, African American or what have you.” That’s through Acker’s eyes. In fact, less than one in three of those Obama-backers were black, though that is still a relatively large ratio in this 93 percent white town. To Acker, anyway, it looked like a flood of strange newcomers.

I found this post from Ta Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic to be incredibly moving.

I was looking at this picture of Obama’s grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I’d bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn’t give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man…

We often give a pass to racists by noting that they were “of their times.” Fair enough, and I know Hawaii was a different beast, but still, today, let us speak of people who were ahead of their times, who were outside of their times. Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what  normal, right people should always do when faced with a child–commit an act love. Here’s to doing the right thing.

In my dream, the angel shrugged & said, If we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination & then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.

– Brian Andreas

You might have heard that this week Rep. John Murtha talked about the racism in his Western Pennsylvania district and that it would likely cost Obama about 4 percentage points in the election.

As fate would have it, Sean Quinn is in Western PA this week with his On the Road series and files a very interesting report. Here’s how it starts:

So a canvasser goes to a woman’s door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she’s planning to vote for. She isn’t sure, has to ask her husband who she’s voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, “We’re votin’ for the n***er!”

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: “We’re voting for the n***er.”

In this economy, racism is officially a luxury. How is John McCain going to win if he can’t win those voters?

The MSM would have us all believe that this election is about “Hockey Moms,” “Joe Sixpack” or “Joe the Plumber.” But as they obsess about all of this, there are stories going on under the radar that haven’t seen the light of day. Thankfully, this time around, we have the breadth and depth of the blogs to get these stories out there. Its where I’m finding my inspiration these days.

Perhaps the most untold story of this election is the ground game that the Obama campaign has developed. I first learned about all of this from our own Populista back in February from an essay titled Obama for Organizer-In-Chief. In it, Populista explained how, during the primaries, Obama was using his community organizing background to build a campaign ground game around the principles of “Respect. Empower. Include.”

This really caught my attention, so over the last few months, I have been trying to read the few stories that are out there about what is going on and how its working. Even the blogs are not paying this story much attention. The ones who are include Zack Exley at The Huffington Post, Al Giordano at The Field, and Sean Quinn at FiveThirtyEight.  

I must admit that this has been a hard week for me. As if the collapse of the global economy weren’t enough, we’ve witnessed a presidential campaign successfully stir up the hatefulness that lies underneath the veneer of our so-called “color-blind” society.

I decided that it was time to take a tour of the diversosphere to see what they were saying about all of this. The condemnation of the McCain/Palin strategy was not that different from what I read in the rest of the progressive blogoshere. But I did find something that was amazing and just what I needed…a reservoir of strength and determination.

For most people of color, this election is about a struggle they’ve been fighting for generations. The fact that it engenders hatefulness is nothing new to them. They’ve been dealing with it their whole lives. And now, just when we are about to cross one of the most significant milestones in our nation’s history, they are not about to be intimidated. To get an idea of what’s at stake, just look at the picture that was at the top of the page on Jack and Jill Politics yesterday.

Every now and then I get a glimpse of how all of this new technology is changing politics and the innovative ways that young people are getting engaged in the process. Here’s an example of a powerful youtube message crafted by and for the next generation of leaders.

From the youtube description:

This video is a call to the American millennial generation, and the rest of the country, to speak now with our vote, so that our silence will not echo for generations to come. The “Citizen’s Cry” makers are targeting the millennial generation specifically because less than 50% of them have ever voted in a presidential election. The youth vote of America is of unprecedented importance today; this is a vital audience that needs to be reached. Our responsibility to vote is our greatest opportunity for change. It is crucial for all generations, creeds and colors to take action.

All the chatter is that McCain will come out swinging tonight. Of course, the town hall format is likely to make that more difficult.

Here’s Bill Kristol’s advice to McCain.

Interesting…I find myself agreeing with him:

When you’re in a crisis, you have to judge the character, the judgment, the background, of the person you’re putting in charge…

Who do you want in charge for 4 difficult years? Who is up to the job?

Its just that I come to the opposite conclusion.

Is this the kind of character and judgment we’re looking for?

I think not!!!!!!!!!!!

I had lunch last week with a good friend of mine. She is in her mid-sixties and her husband is in his early seventies. They are white working class people and life-long Democrats. During the primaries, she had noted how interesting it was that she supported Obama and her husband supported Clinton. Last week when we were talking about the election, she mentioned that her husband would reluctantly vote for Obama. For the first time, I asked her what his concerns were about Obama…she said it was his race.

BAM…never saw that one coming. I know we read alot about this, but it felt like a different story coming from such close quarters. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. I wonder what constructs he has in his head that would write-off someone he would otherwise support simply because of his race. I know he’s from an era where that was more common than it is today, but its still hard for me to get my arms around that kind of blatant racism – especially in someone who is otherwise fairly progressive.

Perhaps its because I’ve been thinking about that conversation so much, or maybe there has been an actual shift in the campaign back to racism, but I seem to be hearing about it a lot more over the last few days. I think the later is more the case as the McCain campaign recognizes its in the “final throes” (hope its more true this time than it was when Cheney said it) and they have announced a new surge in negativity.