COMM 386: It's not too late to read this ...

... and it takes up a point we talked about in our last class meeting -- about government and politics ... and I'll add five points to the final exam grade of anyone who quotes and cites the article.

It's an article by Elizabeth Drew in The New York Review of Books on President-elect Obama that crystalizes how Obama's campaign led right into his governing (even two months before he takes office). It's very perceptive. Should be. Drew has been around for years, written several books, including "Fear and Loathing in George W. Bush's Washington" (2004), and is considered one of the most knowledgeable journalists in the business. She says:

Obama understood the point -— which eludes some presidential candidates -— that running is about governing, that there should be a seamless connection between the two. The best way to judge presidential candidates -— aside from whether one basically agrees with their values—is to try to envision them governing. Will they inspire people to follow them? What kind of people do they have around them? How do they run their campaign? The wise candidate, the one who sees long, will run the campaign as a preparation for the presidency. In Obama's case, from what we have been able to observe up to this point, there will be a straight line from his campaigning to his governing. At their convention, Republicans mocked Obama for having been a community organizer (apparently thinking this was some sort of airy-fairy occupation, not real work); they were defeated by the community organizer -— and they will discover that the country is being governed by one. Obama's understanding that change comes from building a popular mandate from the ground up made his the best-organized campaign, the most methodical in marshaling support, attracting volunteers, and establishing field offices in the various states. It ran rings around both the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

I can't help thinking how much Obama is influenced by Chicago politics here -- not the stereotype of aldermen and Streets and San. officials taking bribes but Chicago politics as it really is ...

Remember in class yesterday when I was quoting Mayor Richard J. Daley (the current Mayor Daley's father), "Good politics is good government." Also, a community organizer named Saul Alinksy, a U of C graduate who started the Back of the Yards Council in the 1930s and has influenced generations of organizers and politicians since that time.