Heart of a country

Friday, Sept. 12, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.

Community organizers have been around for decades and have achieved a reputation for helping people who are sick, who have been laid off, who were born into poverty and who are longing for an opportunity to work toward a better life.

Although it was not surprising to see many members of the Republican Party — the party of tax cuts for the rich and program cuts for the poor — mocking community organizers last week at their convention, it was surprising to see top Republicans leading the charge.

Former New York Gov. George Pataki said, to laughter and applause, “What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.” Rudy Giuliani said, “(Sen. Barack Obama) worked as a community organizer. What?”

The Republican attacks on community organizing, an attempt to belittle and marginalize Obama, are taking politics to a new low.

People who work in this field give of themselves every day to make the country a better place. They get up early to help homeless people, to visit neighborhoods where people are earning low wages or no wages at all. They interact with religious leaders, union officials, civic groups and elected officials.

Is “Country First” just a slogan for Republicans? Have they forgotten that what community organizers do is the very heart and soul of a democratic country? What other explanation could there be for thousands of Republican conventiongoers laughing and jeering at community organizers?

Obama’s work as a community organizer for three years after graduating from college is a credit to him, as it is to all who answer this calling, including Hannah Brown. She is a local community organizer who delivered a letter to John McCain’s Henderson campaign office.

She wrote: “We have braved 110-degree heat ... worked with law enforcement ... registered new voters, fought on behalf of mentally disabled homeless people ... and brought light to the factors causing deteriorating neighborhoods.”

A McCain spokesman dismissed her letter as “a cheap shot by the Obama campaign.” But it is the Republicans who have been taking the cheap shots. To community organizers everywhere, we say: Keep up the good work.