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District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly
Photo by Luke Thomas
 By Chris Daly
August 26, 2008
Denver, CO — A very personal, and very powerful, opening night at the Democratic National Convention was capped by the most-endearing Michelle Obama. But while all the media focuses on Michelle’s great speech and the inspirational appearance of Senator Ted Kennedy, the common thread through the 6-hour session was Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.
Michelle and Obama’s sister, Maya Soetero-Ng, both talked about Obama passing on Wall Street to organize on the streets of Chicago. While not featured on the cable networks, we also heard from Obama’s organizing boss and mentor, Jerry Kellman. A host of Illinois politicians provided an inside view into Obama as both a community organizer and a State Senator.
The focus on Obama as community organizer validates the work of thousands of people working to improve their communities, block by block. It also provides the foundation for the essence of the Obama campaign — change. When speakers at the podium say that Barack Obama will deliver the change we need, I think that they understand that this change is made possible by an organized grassroots movement. It is this movement, now well-groomed by the Obama campaign, that got Barack Obama here. It is this movement that will take Obama to the White House. And it is this movement that will hold Obama and other elected accountable to the communities they serve.
Barack Obama delivers his big acceptance speech on Thursday night. I’ll be watching at Mile High, but for those of you in San Francisco, you can get some of the same flavor by watching with San Francisco Democrats…
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The Hunger Site
August 29, 2008 at 7:20 am
Damn, compared to women and people of color, LGBT have seen our rights materialize so rapidly after we began to organize that it is almost an embarrassment. Seriously, the late Del Martin founded the Daughters of Bilitis a little over 50 years ago, and while marriage is still controversial in some quarters, moving the bar to marriage has rendered job and housing discrimination non-controversial.
As Obama said last evening, this is not about him, it is about us. That kind of other-centered politics is critical to building broad coalitions.
The notion that unless I get every thing I want, nobody gets anything is the kind of selfish thinking that got us such gems as Prop 13, 187 and the like. We get what we can, when we can and then consolidate in victory to empower more ambitious campaigns.
The future holds the truth as to what Obama can or can’t accomplish–never “misunderestimate” the ability of the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory–but let’s hope that local Democrats who like to play the old school of politics, supporters of both Clinton and Obama, can learn to play the kind of new, collaborative politics that Obama suggests rather than the same old manipulative crap that has disillusioned so many from politics.
-marc
August 26, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I heard that Paul Colichman (publisher of The Advocate and Out magazine) has decided not to support Barack Obama for president because of Obama’s definition of marriage.
A die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter, Colichman eventually came around to Obama. He wrote a check to the Obama campaign, but that was BEFORE seeing him speak before Rick Warren at the Saddleback Civil Forum. Both Obama and McCain defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
“I thought, “Wow! He just threw the gay community under the bus.†My partner looked over at me, and we tore up the check,†Colichman said.
“If we always vote for the lesser of two evils, if we accept their crumbs and platitudes, if we write checks to candidates who don’t stand up for us, arenâ€t we being self-destructive?†he said.