The Chicago Tribune | The Swamp blog reports that Sen. Barack Obama‘s new task is to be the “face” guy for the Democratic Party’s ethics and reform initiative. I’m pretty happy about this (actually I’m very happy about this) because I think Obama is the best choice for this job, and also because of his standing in the minority party (he jokes that in spite of his high profile, he’s ranked about 99th or so in seniority) he can’t get much legislation passed unless it’s a total bi-partisan no-brainer.
UPDATE: His remarks today on “Honest Leadership and Open Government” from the Great Hall of the Library of Congress are on his podcast page (transcript available). I wonder if my buddy Debbie got to hear this speech? It rocks:
I realize that our friends on the other side of the aisle have suddenly found religion on this topic, and I think that’s commendable. In fact, I look forward to working in a bipartisan fashion to get a solid bill passed. But let me close by saying that it’s going to take much more than gift bans and lobbying reform to restore the public’s faith in a government of, by, and for the American people.
To earn back that trust – to show people that we’re working for them and looking out for their interests – we have to start acting like it.
That means instead of meeting with lobbyists, it’s time to start meeting with some of the 45 million Americans with no health care (applause). Instead of hitting up the big firms on K Street, it’s time to start visiting the workers on Main Street who are wondering how they’ll send their kids to college or whether their pension will be around when they retire. All these people have done to earn access and gain influence is cast their ballot, but in this democracy, it’s all anyone should have to do. The people running this town need to realize that, and if we hope to be real reformers, that’s the place we need to start.
Obama. He’s my senator.
It would be nice if he could be paired up with someone from across the aisle – someone equally well-regarded by both sides – who also has no connection with the scandal. But who would that be? He worked well with Sen. Lugar (R-IN) last year in Russia, though.
He podcasts regularly, I should subscribe (also, his interview on AAR’s Al Franken show, which was hilarious). His name came up last night at this meeting I attended for community organizing/activism, so it was a pleasant suprise to see his photo and the accompanying story on the Trib this morning. I really like Obama, and hope he’s able to get people talking with each other on the subject, rather than talking AT each other. With his history, this actually seems likely.
About that meeting: it was nice to see how many people turned up who are religious progressives. I’m still getting my head around the idea of this stuff. The group included a lotta Lutherans, a clutch of Catholics, a pair of Episcopalians (Fr. Ted and me) and a solitary but very genial Muslim man.
I only had the vaguest idea of why I was there (it had something to do with being strongarmed by Fr. Ted) and so a lot of the stuff went right over my head, but they’re doing a lot of great work for health care for the uninsured, affordable housing, and homelessness.
Some of the affiliated groups they mentioned were new to me, so I went googling around just now.
Gilead Outreach and Referral Center connects uninsured people with free or low-cost health care they may be eligible to receive.
Public Action for Change Today is a brand-new organization for young adults that is non-partisan, multi-faith, and aimed at building citizen power in groups of young people.
It all seems to be funded or organized by the Industrial Areas Foundation, a grassroots activism group I’d never heard of before last night.
The leaders and organizers of the Industrial Areas Foundation build organizations whose primary purpose is power – the ability to act – and whose chief product is social change. They continue to practice what the Founding Fathers preached: the ongoing attempt to make life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness everyday realities for more and more Americans.
The IAF is non-ideological and strictly non-partisan, but proudly, publicly, and persistently political. The IAF builds a political base within society’s rich and complex third sector – the sector of voluntary institutions that includes religious congregations, labor locals, homeowner groups, recovery groups, parents associations, settlement houses, immigrant societies, schools, seminaries, orders of men and women religious, and others. And then the leaders use that base to compete at times, to confront at times, and to cooperate at times with leaders in the public and private sectors.
One of the things they plan on doing is getting people together to get “immigrant stories.” They specialize in something called “relational meetings” where they put people of different backgrounds, faiths, and outlooks together in a room and get them talking. They do this with politicians, too – getting a pol to commit to a health care plan (case in point, Gov. Rod Blagojevich in a politically dicey election year) is a lot easier if you’ve sat down with him or proved to her that you can get 100 people to show up for a town hall meeting. This kind of community organizing is something we were kicking around at a retreat I did at Holy Moly, and it seems Fr. Ted would like for us to get involved with these folks. Apparently, they have a lot of old-time ties with Sen. Obama – he started out as a community organizer, remember, so they really seem to be able to walk the walk.
Plus, the meeting chair got really antsy when we went over time. This is a good sign, and the other good sign was the lack of blovation and the abundance of common sense and clear communication.