Damn Straight

The all-white Republican convention laughing heartily at Sarah Pain calling Barack Obama a "community organizer" derisively surely were using it as a stand-in for n**ger. I had no doubt while I was watching it. For whose community was Obama serving? The Southside of Chicago. New York Governor David Paterson said it yesterday. About time.

NYTimes: Code Words Hint of Race in Campaign, Paterson Says

Gov. David A. Paterson said on Tuesday that he detected “overtones of potential racial coding” in the presidential campaign, drawing a sharp retort from the campaign of Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate.

[]

... “I think the Republican Party is too smart to call Barack Obama black in a sense that would be a negative. But you can take something about his life, which I noticed they did at the Republican convention — a ‘community organizer.’ They kept saying it, they kept laughing, like, ‘What does this mean?’ ”

[]

A McCain spokesman, Peter Feldman, said in a statement that criticisms of Mr. Obama’s early work as a community organizer by Mr. McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, were well within the bounds of respectable political debate.

“Governor Palin’s remark about Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer was in response to the Obama campaign’s belittling of her executive experience,” Mr. Feldman said. “There is certainly a place for community activism, as demonstrated by Sarah Palin’s own record of civic involvement. But Barack Obama’s role as a community organizer pales in comparison to Governor Palin’s demonstrated experience.”

Mr. Paterson on Tuesday seemed to bristle at such attacks. Defining what a community organizer was, Mr. Paterson said: “It means that an individual who could have gone to Wall Street and made a lot of money — and then run for office because he can buy media time — chose to go back and work in programs in neighborhoods where he thought he can make a difference and became an elected official based on his involvement right in his own community.”