How Obama Applies Alinsky's Rules

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, September 22, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: Barack Obama's mocking of John McCain, while urging his followers to "get in their face," are tactics right out of his radical hero Saul Alinsky's playbook: ridicule and agitation.
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At a recent Las Vegas rally, Obama poked fun at Sen. McCain for what he described as bragging about "how as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he had oversight of every part of the economy."

"Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, 'Nice job. Nice job,' " Obama said in a sarcastic tone. "Where is he getting these lines? It's like a 'Saturday Night Live' routine."

Then he belittled the 72-year-old McCain for vowing to take on the old boys network. "In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting," he sneered.

The late Alinsky, a trench-warfare socialist who despised American capitalism, advised community organizers like Obama to "laugh at the enemy" to provoke "irrational anger."

"Ridicule," he said, "is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."

At another rally in Nevada, Obama called on the crowd of about 1,500 to join him in sharpening their elbows against McCain and his supporters. "I want you argue with them and get in their face," he said, in a naked attempt to "fan hostilities" in the tightening race, something Alinsky also advised from his bag of agitation tricks.

Obama doesn't look or talk like an angry radical. He speaks in measured tones and is rarely seen out of business attire. That, too, is borrowed from Alinsky's playbook. "Don't scare" the middle class, he guides urban revolutionaries in his 1970s manual, "Rules for Radicals" (which he dedicated to mankind's "first radical, Lucifer").

Instead, look like them, talk like them, act like them.

And work for radical change from the inside — "like a spy behind enemy lines," as Obama said in his first memoir. He wrote it before entering politics, while still working with hard-left Alinsky groups and training street agitators known as "community organizers."

As he wrote, he became a community organizer in 1983 because of "The need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds."

That's when he set out to "organize black folks" for social revolution, first in Harlem, then the South Side of Chicago. Now he wants to do it on a "large scale." Though most average voters wouldn't know it, he's applying Alinsky's radical rules to achieve his goal.

Alinksy stressed that his rules be translated into real-life tactics responsive to the situation at hand — which right now happens to be something he never could have dreamed of: a disciple who would find himself in a viable battle for the most powerful job in the world.

Obama has already translated several of Alinsky's rules into battle tactics, including:

• Rule: "Rub raw the resentments of the people; search out controversy and issues." In the mortgage meltdown, for instance, Obama vows to prosecute "predatory lenders" for "abusing" minority borrowers. He's also stoking class resentment by painting Wall Street and other executives as villains.

• Rule: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." In an ad to woo Hispanic voters, Obama demonized Rush Limbaugh by falsely claiming he made racist statements against immigrants.

• Rule: "A mass impression can be lasting and intimidating." This explains why Obama moved his acceptance speech to a football stadium and bussed in 85,000 supporters. Alinsky's son was so impressed, he praised Obama for learning his father's "lesson well."

• Rule: "Multiple issues mean constant action and life" for the cause. This is why Obama never harps on one issue, as Hillary did with health care. His platform is packed with grievances from "economic justice" to "reproductive justice" to "environmental justice."

Obama is following almost to the letter the blueprint for socialist revolution drafted by the father of community organizing.

While Alinsky may help him behind the scenes, however, he becomes a liability when brought out of the shadows. Sarah Palin proved this in St. Paul when she ridiculed his community organizing. Within hours, Obama surrogates whined about how just bringing up the phrase was racist code for "black."

No, it's code for communist. And McCain should make that point instead of legitimizing such radicalism, as he did recently when he said, "I respect community organizers; and Sen. Obama's record there is outstanding" — which contradicted his running mate.

There's nothing to respect about such anti-American radicals, even if they have traded their tie-dye for business ties.