Saul Alinsky has been called the "Father of Modern Radicalism" and "the original community organizer." He has written a number of books outlining his philosophy of activism. I am not familiar with all of his views, and I don't embrace all of those with which I am familiar. However, he captured me forever with his description of the difference between a leader and an organizer:
The leader goes on to build power to fulfill his desires, to hold and wield the power for purposes both social and personal. He wants power himself.
The organizer finds his goal in creation of power for others to use.
Whether they are grassroots, corporatists, or elitists, political candidates are inherently leaders. One way or the other, they seek to consolidate the power of others to fufill their desire to get elected and re-elected.
The organizer, on the other hand, does not seek power in order to achieve his own goals. He tries to help others achieve their goals. When Obama repeated over and over throughout his campaign that "anyone who knows me knows I'm all about bringing people together to get things done," he almost certainly meant it. This is what the organizer does.
This could explain why Obama's list of personal accomplishments in Illinois and the Senate is such a short list. He's an organizer. He doesn't try to accomplish things personally. He tries to faciliate other people's efforts to accomplish the things they want to accomplish.
I have yet to hear Obama promise a public option, however many times I have heard people here claim that he did. However, I have heard Obama say many times, in one phrasing or another, that he thinks a public option is a good idea. But he's an organizer, not a leader...so it doesn't matter what he thinks. An organizer doesn't try to get his way. Obama is...as he as said so many times that even I have heard him say it more than once...trying to get things done. What gets done...for the Alinsky-style organizer, that is entirely up to the people he is trying to bring together.
This puts an interesting twist on Obama and his so-called desire for bipartisanship. I have never followed Obama all that closely, but I always got the feeling that this was a word that was being put into his mouth by others. As an example, here is the joint statement that he and McCain issued shortly after the election:
At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation's security.
I see no call for bipartisanship in this statement, only for an end to bitter partisanship and a call to work together. It is not Obama's fault that the only people he has available to bring together to get things done in DC belong to one of two parties. It seems more likely that he has no particular interest in achieving bipartisanship; he is just aiming to bring together the people who need to come together in order to get things done.
This would also explain my different impressions of Obama speaking and Obama being interviewed. I have incurred the wrath of the cultists by describing Obama's role in his Administration as mostly that of spokesperson. That fits, though. An organizer is nothing if not a team player, so when formally addressing the nation, he would do his best to articulate the position of his Administration (including our beloved Rahm), rather than his personal perspective. However, when Obama is being interviewed, he always strikes me as giving his own opinion, without any thought that this would be a policy statement. How could it be? If he is really an organizer, he wouldn't set policy, he would seek consensus. But given the usual "leader" model this country has always pursued for its President, it is easy to understand why many people would take what he says in an interview as a policy statement, and then be real p*ssed off when he doesn't fight for that policy.
I don't know how on target this interpretation is. I am thinking of it now as a potentially useful way of looking at Obama. However, I do think that this was how many independents and young voters...who had had it up to here with bitter partisanship...saw Obama, and that this is a big reason why they turned out to vote for him. Because this was the change many of them wanted...more than than a restored economy, more than healthcare reform, more than an end to the War on Terror, more than the restoration of our civil liberties.
This perspective gives truth to the partisan lament that "independents don't care about the issues, they just vote for 'the guy'." Indeed. In this case, "the guy" was an organizer, not a leader. And that's what they wanted in a President. I think maybe that's what they got. Whether they will be happy with the results...that we will find out in three years.