Letters to the Editor
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@cpaige
Of course, we all can't be community organizers like Obama (who, as near as anyone can tell, never found a job for anyone other than himself).
I agree that we all can't be community organizers like Obama. It's a near thankless and difficult job, not well paid, not very rewarding. But apparently it's something that Hillary Clinton once found admirable or at least interesting, since "she wrote her undergraduate thesis at Wellesley College on the life and ideas of Saul Alinsky, the godfather of professional organizing" according to one of the articles below.
Maybe these will help you sort out what a community organizer actually does, as opposed to a job placement worker:
Obama forged path as Chicago community organizer
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/politics/ny-usobam0302,0,5627014.story?page=3
On the Streets of Chicago, a Candidate Comes of Age: As a community organizer, Obama was a pragmatic leader
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070826/3obama.htm
Obama's Community Roots http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg
Portrait of a pragmatist: As a raw community organizer in Chicago in the `80s, Obama preached reaching out to attain goals http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0703300121mar30,0,7587027.story?page=1
Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City By Barack Obama (c) 1990 Illinois Issues, Springfield, Illinois
All of this community organizing -- reflected in his current grassroots campaign -- is what he did before Harvard, and is part of the experience that Mrs. Clinton discounts. In referring to her 3 A.M. ad, after noting that she hadn't made a "3 AM" decision herself, because only presidents have, she said, "The question is what have you done over the course of a lifetime to equip you for that moment." yet apparently only she and John McCain have had a lifetime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou4JnWQsxKw&feature=related
Mrs. Clinton claims 35 years of experience, which means experience started to count for her at age 25.
Senator Obama was only 23 when he plunged into Chicago's South Side as a community organizer, 23 years ago. There's a lot of water under his bridge since then: Presidient of Harvard Law Review, the state senate, the U.S. senate, 11 years of elected office in all, marriage and children, yet he only has "a speech from 2002" according to Mrs. Clinton, as if he sprang forth into the world new and raw -- at 40.
That speech must really rankle.