At the '08 RNC Convention in Minnesota, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani mockingly asked the crowd "What does a community organizer actually do?" an obvious shot at Obama's days as a community organizer, and the crowd ate it up. Alaska governor and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin must have liked the line (and the crowd response) as when she took the stage as part of her address she claimed that her experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska was "sort of like being a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities."
What does this have to do with anything now? Follow me after the jump.
Randy Parraz wants to challenge John McCain for his Arizona Senate Seat. But he needs our help to get that opportunity as he's in a primary battle right now and it's going to be close. It's a four way race with a lot of undecideds still at this stage. Unfortunately mail-in ballots are already out and a lot of politically aware folks have already voted and sent their ballots in. Other will have decided to wait to let the primary campaigns play out before making their decision though, and others might not be planning on even voting - this is the group that needs to be targeted.
This election does matter, John McCain is not a lock to retain his seat. But we need a fighter on our side, somebody with passion to rally people, the exhibited ability to lead. John McCain might have the money, but Randy Parraz will have the volunteers.
Mr. Parraz just doesn't talk the talk, he walks the walk - Parraz joins a teamsters Picketline Aug 2nd -
And before you write this off as political pandering, as we've all seen this photo-op used by politicians in the past and will in the future here's a brief look at his bio:
Randy Parraz is an attorney, community organizer, and executive director of the National Voter Rights Education Project. As a leader of the AFL-CIO, he spent many years advocating on behalf of workers and their families. From church based organizing in East Dallas, to national coalition building on behalf of 20,000 strawberry workers in the fields of California, to coordinating the mobilization of thousands of Canadians across the border from Vancouver to Seattle in protest against the WTO, to spearheading support for the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride in Arizona, Parraz has experience with many different methods of social change. He is the founder of both the Student Institute for Social Change and the Latino Youth Leadership Institute.
A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Parraz earned a Master's degree in Public Administration at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a J.D. at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. He was a leader in the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and the AFL-CIO for nine years.
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