Palin attacks grassroots democracy at Republican convention

In my day job, I've worked with thousands of people directly, helping tens of millions of Americans with basics like jobs and housing. People are trustworthy and good, and get a lot done when organized at the grassroots level. Good people helping each other out, that's a great expression of American values and democracy.

This is sometimes called "community organizing" and it's part of the vision of the Founders of the USA.

Community organizing or any sort of genuine grassroots efforts is a real threat to Bush, McCain, and Palin. People start looking at their actions instead of their words. Even a guy like me, busy doing customer service, can see that Palin has a strong record supporting earmarks, supporting the "bridge to nowhere", and has close relationships to the more predatory lobbyists. (Follow the evidence, it's already available to everyone.)

I'm personally more than a little disappointed by the attacks on grassroots democracy we heard at the Republican convention. As you see, it's basically an attack on American values and democracy, and that's not right.

Palin's attack is consistent with the Bush/McCain team, who's on record saying they want the least possible input from Americans, and don't care what we think. (I'm citing Perino and Cheney.)

Ironically, as Palin was speaking, I was working with people on real ways to include more people in our democracy, focusing on voter registration and voting when it's difficult to do so.

Comments

[Brad]

Craig,
I think that's great that you work to improve our Democracy. However, I'm not sure that simply including more people to participate is sufficient.
That leaves a lot of room for Politicians to fool the voters.
I like the work you do with Sunlight Foundation, but that's a whole lot of research for the folks you have newly registered. I don't think they will do it.
I see the missing link as improving the proficiency of the current voters!!
You need to connect the Performance of Government with the Electoral process. When the Voters do look into a Candidates Performance, they need to take that information with them to the Ballot box, in lieu of the TV blurbs.
I'd love to hear your thoughts!!
-Brad

[Karen]

UPDATE; I've informed this commenter that they're the victim of a scam.

She wasn't belittling community service, she was belittling Obama belitting HER small town governmental experience! Frankly, if I were the pair of THEM...I would stay far, far away from the subject of qualifications!

Frankly, it is their lack of qualifications that make them charming. Who is charmed by McCain or Biden? Not me!

So...are you going to buy Facebook or something?

[jose martinez]

Craig, your site has become the worst garbage site.
It is filled with self righteous flaggers who have nothing better to do than silence anything against their view.

Goodbye!!!

[Howard Owens]

For a different look at grassroots and what it means, I recommend Bill Kauffman's book, Look Homeward, America.

Craig, if you buy it and read it, I would be very interested in your take.

[David Hirschfeld]

Craig, speaking of grass roots movements, here's one that maybe you could help with. Do have any idea how to get the vote out in our universities. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. I have two sons currently attending UofA in Tucson. My oldest had a difficult time voting two years because he was late requesting a mail-in ballet, and like most college students he didn't plan in time to register so he could cast his vote at a local polling place in Tucson. To make it worse, UofA didn't have an on-campus polling location at that time, so the majority of students just didn't vote. Since Universities represent a huge groups of Obama supporters, it seems like we should be helping to make voting easier for them. Do you have any ideas how we can help them get their votes counted?

[VidCrayzee]

Ronald Reagan summarizes the entire Republican Convention as only the Great Communicator can. Check it out at, http://beema.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/beema-news/.

[Cathy Brooks]

Perhaps a gift to her should be a dictionary so she can actually get a clue about the definition of democracy. Thanks for this post, Craig. It's not as though I intended to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket anyway, but this serves as solid fodder to hopefully help others see the light.