Learning from the Organizer in Chief

This is interesting.

There’s a certain irony here.

The 20th century community organizer who used 21st century tools for his people-powered White House campaign now finds himself besieged by citizens airing their grievances at 19th century-inspired town hall style meetings.

Barack Obama’s top legislative goal hangs in the balance and his popularity is suffering as critics co-opt his tech-savvy organizing methods, tag him as a boogyman and disrupt local gatherings on his proposed health care overhaul.

Is the groundbreaking campaigner, whose White House political arm is aptly called Organizing for America, being outmaneuvered?

“That’s a fair summary of where things are at the moment,” said Sanford Horwitt, a biographer of Saul Alinsky, the father of community organizing.

“The other side has the anger and the intensity, and Obama’s side doesn’t,” Horwitt said.

This is a point the major media are missing. The nation has learned from the Obama team’s masterful application of these skills. A Saul Alinsky biographer acknowledges this shift in the cultural passions of the times.

The White House and its allies claim the protests are simply a fake grass-roots movement — “astroturfing” — but a USA Today/Gallup Poll this week found that most Americans believe the protesters’ sentiments are genuine.

Good for USA Today and Gallup to follow through on taking the popular pulse and challenging the demeaning spin of….”astroturfing”?

Judging by the jeers and rants at Democratic lawmakers’ public forums this August, Obama appears to be facing a populist backlash from Americans who want no part of the wholesale change he promised as a candidate. The fierce opposition is threatening to further erode wider public support for his sweeping transformation of the nation’s medical system.

He taught the nation the power of community organizing and mobilization. They are using it now to voice their concerns and participate in this representative republic. Time for Mr. Obama to prove he really is as interested in transparency and dialogue and common ground as he has proclaimed since taking office.