It’s About Making Babies!

Community Organizers - An apples and oranges brouhaha.

Barack Obama’s resume is somewhat brief, in matters of leadership. One of the prominent positions is ‘Community Organizer’. Democrats went out of their way to point out how Sarah Palin’s stint of mayor was in a small community, Wasilla had a population of 9,000 or so at the time.

Alaska Governor Palin and now Vice Presidential Candidate Palin got some great media coveraged during her acceptance speech when she potted a barb at Presidential Candidate Obama -

The difference between a small town mayor and a community organizer is that I had actual responsibilities.

I can see this both ways. Community organizers are responsible to the people that hire them, and to those they are required to help. A small town mayor is legally responsible for certain things. A community organizer could get fired. A small town mayor could go to jail, for failing to meet responsibilities in an extraordinary fashion. A community organizer could botch the hope of a family. A small town mayor could cost 9,000 people opportunities or problems.

Tam at View From The Porch pointed to an article about an organization of community organizers protesting about their job being belittled, Community Organizers Fight Back.

What I see is that this organization is idealogically part of the Democratic liberal agenda.

The last thing we need is for Republican officials to mock us on television when we’re trying to rebuild the neighborhoods they have destroyed.

“I have ‘actual responsibilities,’” said Jacqueline del Valle, a community organizer in the Bronx. “If Mayor Giuliani and President Bush cared more about working people instead of just people who can hire high-powered lobbyists, maybe I wouldn’t have so much responsibility. Maybe working people would have an easier time in America today. But that’s not our reality, and they don’t have to mock us while we’re trying to clean up their mess.”

I figure the Republicans deserve an apology from Sen. Obama for belittling small town mayors - an often thankless job with direct responsibility to a community, to state and federal regulators, community organizations and infrastructure.

From the OrganizersFightBack inaugural press release:

Though many people are unfamiliar with community organizing, the job is both straightforward and vital: community organizers work with families who are struggling–because of low wages, poor health coverage, unaffordable housing, and other community problems–so that collectively, they can fix those problems and make government respond to their day-to-day concerns. Organizers knock on doors, attend community meetings, visit churches and synagogues and mosques, and work with unions and civic groups and block associations to help ordinary people build power and counter the influence of self-interested insiders and highly paid lobbyists at all levels of government.

This is a social services coordinator; a vital task. But social service coordinator, community organizers, have to be sympathetic to the people that want to keep businesses in business, and providing jobs to the community. Punish employers, intimidate them, consider them the enemy - and you make them think of closing down or moving - and depriving the community of even more jobs.

Those that focus on growing and maintaining the economy focus on productivity, on improving the business and industrial environment. They don’t disparage social services, and care for the needy (unless they are being attacked for enabling employers to provide jobs).

Caring for the hungry doesn’t produce income, nor provide jobs. Growing businesses, managing amount of regulation, retaining profits, protecting business from opportunistic lawsuits takes a different focus. But income for a corporation always generates jobs, and jobs are the single most effective way to feed and clothe and house a family and community.

These two focuses *need* each other. Those growing the economy need to know that the needy are being cared for. Those caring for the needy and those in need have to know that business is sustaining the community infrastructure, that people with jobs have opportunities to advance, and security that their job will continue.

In this current round of spite, Sen. Obama and senior Democrats flung the first stones. This is called partisanship, and is divisive. A candidate has to be able to say, “Look at me. I am a better choice than my opponent. Here is why.” This is the nature of elections - one candidate gets picked, voters divide from a community, for the moment, into those that vote for Obama, those that vote for McCain (remember him?), and those that express other choices. In order to elect a President, this has to happen. In order for our nation to grow and stand strong, though, we need to be able to stand together and hear the election results, and each of us believe that we chose well.

But when we believe we chose well, we can’t afford to resent those that voted against “our” candidate. And that is what is *wrong* about negative campaigning. When supporters dwell on the opponent’s faults - especially when the ‘fault’ is invented or unfairly disparaged - instead of their preferred candidates’ advantages, what remains is fear and loathing.

So I would certainly support an apology from Governor Palin to community organizers. I am sure that she meant only to point out the unfairness of Senator Obama’s disparagement for Governor Palin having been mayor of Wasilla, AK. Making fun of another’s honorable work is never right.

In return, I would support an apology from Senator Obama for disparaging something completely outside his own experience - small towns, business, industry, and agriculture. It is good that we have a candidate with experience of the inner city. But the President has to lead *all* Americans. And even though the connection is indirect, when farming or business suffers, the inner city suffers. The reverse isn’t nearly as direct a connection. And, yes, I understand that community organizers work at all levels, in all communities, that there are people in need everywhere. The services that community organizers coordinate are provided, not produced. CO’s are dependent on a stable economy, robust business environment, healthy agriculture, etc.

We need a balance. We need each other.

There is nothing spectacular about Sarah Palin.

An answer to fear

Except she appears to be the answer to a lot of fears about the next presidential administration. I had feared the apparent, abysmal lack of competence among the candidates. All of the front runners.

Look at what the Democratic Congress has bought us. Notice the price of your gas, lately? What about all the ‘Help Wanted’ signs around town - for short order cooks and welders? Heard about any major companies laying off more than 1,000 people in the last two weeks? How about airlines folding and cutting flights? Hint: President Bush spends the money that keeps the country running. Congress tells him what can be spent. Want to turn the economy around? We can wait for another Ronald Reagan, or tell the Representatives and Senators in Congress to stop over-spending, stop gutting the collected Social Security fund, and stop with the pork-barrel, special interest stuff. Then wait five or ten years. Because the decay we see today Bill Clinton started 4 years ago, when it became apparent that Al Gore wasn’t going to be continuing the Clinton Years - and political debts had to be paid.

A change in the Republican Party

What placing Sarah Palin on the Republican Ticket means to me, is that the Republican Party recognizes that they were so busy being a party, they stopped being a representation of their members. Bob Dole was an insult to America. A very fine gentleman, my only quarrel was that he had no touch with Americans, he didn’t share the values I find important. I saw Dole, like McCain, as a plodder, a party hack that got to stand at the front of the line, because his turn came around. If any other Republican wants the ‘machine’ to promote and support him or her the next time around, they have to play ball this time. If they keep the patronage and seniority rules going, then it will work for them, maybe, some time in the future.

Sarah Palin has worked with the Federal Bureaucracy. She has served a couple of years as Governor of the second largest state in the Union, with communication and infrastructure problems that make the job tougher than elsewhere.

Oh, my. I just realized - I don’t know if she prefers ‘Ms. Palin’ or ‘Mrs. Palin’ I am sure Governor Palin is a good way to waffle around the question, but there is a reason I hesitate. See, Hilary Clinton wants us to forget the Rodham in her maiden name, the family that raised her. Hilary also doesn’t want anyone calling her Mrs. Clinton - she is no wife, her role of wife is *not* important to her. For Governor Palin, I want to respect her preference. She is married, a mother of five. And happy with her work and her family. True, the photos and sound bites may have caught her in the midst of shock and jubilation at being asked to partner McCain - but she appears to be a genuinely happy individual. I pray that she holds onto that joy, those values, and that they still mean the same to her after her stint in the White House.

Because Obama/Biden looks like an old-school ticket. Biden brings the foreign affairs experience. Obama brings a seat in the Senate - except he never found anyone willing to work with him. And he has been willing to abandon his constituents for a year to play the campaign game. Chicago’s Democratic Machine may be playing Mayor Dailey style power games, but outside Chicago, Obama can’t really point to many accomplishments. So he *had* to pick someone like Biden, for credibility. And Barack Obama really hopes voters confuse having experience on the ticket, with *Obama* having experience.

And what McCain appears to be doing by picking a young, talented, non-Washington, DC politician, is to offer a real change. McCain appears to be pledging to serve the younger, vital Republicans - and the whole country. That change must be rocking the Republican party. I hope it is a permanent change for the party.

Family Values

I realize that Family Values got a bit old, as a political slogan, a couple-five elections back. Yet here we have a VP candidate with a growing family - of five children, with a husband. A ‘gun toting soccer mom’ as I heard a friend describe her. I expect family issues, and realistic views on finances, on freedoms an rights, and discipline.

One for instance, with a vital Republican ticket, I can look forward to curtailment of parts of the Patriot Act, and a review of the Department of Homeland Security. Maybe we could, please, dismantle the Department of Education this time?

A ray of hope, late in the season.

Governor Palin’s ‘Palin Effect’ is mostly hope, for me. A chance for a bit of optimism.

Welcoming Governor Palin

Well, then their is the splash made on the Internet.

Some wise-acre decided this Mother of Five rated well on his site of ‘Mothers I’d Love to F***’ (something like, ‘fool around with’). I suppose that is a compliment, I have heard women consider themselves complimented. Me? I figure there is only one woman that has ‘worth’ that is affected by my sexual jollies, and she would be my mate. Worrying about ’scoring’ is disrespectful and crude. I also don’t like the ‘Vice President I’d Like To F***’ (VPILF, for the non-Adult kink crowd).

Then there are the made-up ‘little known facts’ about Sarah Palin on the Internet today. I made up a few myself. I found the thread at Looking for Lissa Palin-Effect, and then at Rachel Lucas. I liked my own ‘facts’ from my comment on ‘Lissa:

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin is grand daughter to Michael Palin. One of her conditions for running, is that John Cleese will be named Secretary of State.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin is honest, disciplined, and loyal to friends, courteous to all.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin balances the family checkbook, as well as the state treasury, because she enjoys the tasks.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin created the Northern Lights, as portrayed on Al Gore’s Internet.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin was named ‘Eskimo’s Friend’. They named a pie after her. It looks like a big, cold Oreo cookie.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin’s favorite day is Monday. She gets to brag about the weekend’s hunting.

Little Known Fact: Sara Palin’s favorite color is blue. Sky blue. She enjoys laying out liberals to watch her favorite color.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin brings hope of sanity and a rational government to the looney-tunes vaudeville acts of the 2008 Presidential race. As a mother of five, she has heard and dealt with more BS than most Senators have heard from all the lobbyists in DC.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin brings a stable family life and an honorable husband with her. This may overset the current understanding of ‘family values’ among liberals.

My best wishes to Governor Palin, her family, and the United States.