Article from the NROWhat if Barack Obama's most important radical connection has been hiding
in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term
association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform
Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama
had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you'd know what I was
talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known
groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully
selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that
way. And so, I'd wager, does Barack Obama.
This is a story we've largely missed. While Obama's Acorn connection has
not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have
been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on
behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit
forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal "motor-voter"
bill. In fact, Obama's Acorn connection is far more extensive. In the
few stories where Obama's role as an Acorn "leadership trainer" is
noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported
Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more
extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama's ties to Acorn.
An Anti-Capitalism Agenda
To understand the nature and extent of Acorn's radicalism, an excellent
place to begin is Sol Stern's 2003 City Journal article, "ACORN's Nutty
Regime for Cities." (For a shorter but helpful piece, try Steven
Malanga's "Acorn Squash.")
Sol Stern explains that Acorn is the key modern successor of the radical
1960's "New Left," with a "1960's-bred agenda of anti-capitalism" to
match. Acorn, says Stern, grew out of "one of the New Left's silliest
and most destructive groups, the National Welfare Rights Organization."
In the 1960's, NWRO launched a campaign of sit-ins and disruptions at
welfare offices. The goal was to remove eligibility restrictions, and
thus effectively flood welfare rolls with so many clients that the
system would burst. The theory, explains Stern, was that an impossibly
overburdened welfare system would force "a radical reconstruction of
America's unjust capitalist economy." Instead of a socialist utopia,
however, we got the culture of dependency and family breakdown that ate
away at America's inner cities - until welfare reform began to turn the
tide.
While Acorn holds to NWRO's radical economic framework and its
confrontational 1960's-style tactics, the targets and strategy have
changed. Acorn prefers to fly under the national radar, organizing
locally in liberal urban areas - where, Stern observes, local
legislators and reporters are often "slow to grasp how radical Acorn's
positions really are." Acorn's new goals are municipal "living wage"
laws targeting "big-box" stores like Wal-Mart, rolling back welfare
reform, and regulating banks - efforts styled as combating "predatory
lending." Unfortunately, instead of helping workers, Acorn's living-wage
campaigns drive businesses out of the very neighborhoods where jobs are
needed most. Acorn's opposition to welfare reform only threatens to
worsen the self-reinforcing cycle of urban poverty and family breakdown.
Perhaps most mischievously, says Stern, Acorn uses banking regulations
to pressure financial institutions into massive "donations" that it uses
to finance supposedly non-partisan voter turn-out drives.
According to Stern, Acorn's radical agenda sometimes shifts toward
"undisguised authoritarian socialism." Fully aware of its living-wage
campaign's tendency to drive businesses out of cities, Acorn hopes to
force companies that want to move to obtain "exit visas." "How much
longer before Acorn calls for exit visas for wealthy or middle-class
individuals before they can leave a city?" asks Stern, adding, "This is
the road to serfdom indeed."
In Your Face
Acorn's tactics are famously "in your face." Just think of Code Pink's
well-known operations (threatening to occupy congressional offices,
interrupting the testimony of General David Petraeus) and you'll get the
idea. Acorn protesters have disrupted Federal Reserve hearings, but
mostly deploy their aggressive tactics locally. Chicago is home to one
of its strongest chapters, and Acorn has burst into a closed city
council meeting there. Acorn protestors in Baltimore disrupted a
bankers' dinner and sent four busloads of profanity-screaming protestors
against the mayor's home, terrifying his wife and kids. Even a Baltimore
city council member who generally supports Acorn said their intimidation
tactics had crossed the line.
Acorn, however, defiantly touts its confrontational tactics. While Stern
himself notes this, the point is driven home sharper still in an
Acorn-friendly reply to Stern entitled "Enraging the Right." Written by
academic/activists John Atlas and Peter Dreier, the reply's avowed
intent is to convince Acorn-friendly politicians, journalists, and
funders not to desert the organization in the wake of Stern's powerful
critique. The stunning thing about this supposed rebuttal is that it
confirms nearly everything Stern says. Do Atlas and Dreier object to
Stern's characterizations of Acorn's radical plans - even his
slippery-slope warnings about Acorn's designs on basic freedom of
movement? Nope. "Stern accurately outlines Acorn's agenda," they say.
Do Atlas and Dreier dismiss Stern's catalogue of Acorn's disruptive and
intentionally intimidating tactics as a set of regrettable exceptions to
Acorn's rule of civility? Not a chance. Atlas and Dreier are at pains to
point out that intimidation works. They proudly reel off the increased
memberships that follow in the wake of high-profile disruptions, and
clearly imply that the same public officials who object most
vociferously to intimidation are the ones most likely to cave as a
result. What really upsets Atlas and Dreier is that Stern misses the
subtle national hand directing Acorn's various local campaigns. This is
radicalism unashamed.
But don't let the disruptive tactics fool you. Acorn is a savvy and
exceedingly effective political player. Stern says that Acorn's key
post-New Left innovation is its determination to take over the system
from within, rather than futilely try to overthrow it from without.
Stern calls this strategy a political version of Invasion of the Body
Snatchers. Take Atlas and Dreier at their word: Acorn has an openly
aggressive and intimidating side, but a sophisticated inside game, as
well. Chicago's Acorn leader, for example, won a seat on the Board of
Aldermen as the candidate of a leftist "New Party."
Obama Meets Acorn
What has Barack Obama got to do with all this? Plenty. Let's begin with
Obama's pre-law school days as a community organizer in Chicago. Few
people have a clear idea of just what a "community organizer" does. A
Los Angeles Times piece on Obama's early Chicago days opens with the
touching story of his efforts to build a partnership with Chicago's
"Friends of the Parks," so that parents in a blighted neighborhood could
have an inviting spot for their kids to play. This is the image of
Obama's organizing we're supposed to hold. It's far from the whole
story, however. As the L. A. Times puts it, "Obama's task was to help
far South Side residents press for improvement" in their communities.
Part of Obama's work, it would appear, was to organize demonstrations,
much in the mold of radical groups like Acorn.
Although the L. A. Times piece is generally positive, it does press
Obama's organizing tales on certain points. Some claim that Obama's
book, Dreams from My Father, exaggerates his accomplishments in
spearheading an asbestos cleanup at a low-income housing project. Obama,
these critics say, denies due credit to Hazel Johnson, an activist who
claims she was the one who actually discovered the asbestos problem and
led the efforts to resolve it. Read carefully, the L. A. Times story
leans toward confirming this complaint against Obama, yet the story's
emphasis is to affirm Obama's important role in the battle. Speaking up
in defense of Obama on the asbestos issue is Madeleine Talbot, who at
the time was a leader at Chicago Acorn. Talbot, we learn, was so
impressed by Obama's organizing skills that she invited him to help
train her own staff.
And what exactly was Talbot's work with Acorn? Talbot turns out to have
been a key leader of that attempt by Acorn to storm the Chicago City
Council (during a living-wage debate). While Sol Stern mentions this
story in passing, the details are worth a look: On July 31, 1997, six
people were arrested as 200 Acorn protesters tried to storm the Chicago
City Council session. According to the Chicago Daily Herald, Acorn
demonstrators pushed over the metal detector and table used to screen
visitors, backed police against the doors to the council chamber, and
blocked late-arriving aldermen and city staff from entering the session.
Reading the Herald article, you might think Acorn's demonstrators had
simply lost patience after being denied entry to the gallery at a packed
meeting. Yet the full story points in a different direction. This was
not an overreaction by frustrated followers who couldn't get into a
meeting (there were plenty of protestors already in the gallery), but
almost certainly a deliberate bit of what radicals call "direct action,"
orchestrated by Acorn's Madeleine Talbot. As Talbot was led away
handcuffed, charged with mob action and disorderly conduct, she
explicitly justified her actions in storming the meeting. This was the
woman who first drew Obama into his alliance with Acorn, and whose staff
Obama helped train.
Surprise Visit
Does that mean Obama himself schooled Acorn volunteers in disruptive
"direct action?" Not necessarily. The City Council storming took place
in 1997, years after Obama's early organizing days. And in general,
Obama seems to have been part of Acorn's "inside baseball" strategy. As
a national star from his law school days, Obama knew he had a political
future, and would surely have been reluctant to violate the law. In his
early organizing days, Obama used to tell the residents he organized
that they'd be more effective in their protests if they controlled their
anger. On the other hand, as he established and deepened his association
with Acorn through the years, Obama had to know what the organization
was all about. Moreover, in his early days, Obama was not exactly a
stranger to the "direct action" side of community organizing.
Consider the second charge against Obama raised by the L.A. Times
backgrounder. On the stump today, Obama often says he helped prevent
South Side Chicago blacks, Latinos, and whites from turning on each
other after losing their jobs, but many of the community organizers
interviewed by the L. A. Times say that Obama worked overwhelmingly with
blacks.
To rebut this charge, Obama's organizer friends tell the story of how he
helped plan "actions" that included mixed white, black, and Latino
groups. For example, following Obama's plan, one such group paid a
"surprise visit" to a meeting between local officials considering a
landfill expansion. The protestors surrounded the meeting table while
one activist made a statement chiding the officials, after which the
protestors filed out. Presto! Obama is immunized from charges of having
worked exclusively with blacks - but at the cost of granting us a peek
at the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy side of his community organizing.
Intimidation tactics are revealed, and Obama's alliance with radical
Acorn activists like Madeleine Talbot begins to make sense.
"Non-Partisan"
The extent of Obama's ties to Acorn has not been recognized. We find
some important details in an article in the journal Social Policy
entitled, "Case Study: Chicago - The Barack Obama Campaign," by Toni
Foulkes, a Chicago Acorn leader and a member of Acorn's National
Association Board. The odd thing about this article is that Foulkes is
forced to protect the technically "non-partisan" status of Acorn's
get-out-the-vote campaigns, even as he does everything in his power to
give Acorn credit for helping its favorite son win the critical 2004
primary that secured Obama the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate.
Before giving us a tour of Acorn's pro-Obama but somehow "non-partisan"
election activities, Foulks treats us to a brief history of Obama's ties
to Acorn. While most press accounts imply that Obama just happened to be
at the sort of public-interest law firm that would take Acorn's "motor
voter" case, Foulkes claims that Acorn specifically sought out Obama's
representation in the motor voter case, remembering Obama from the days
when he worked with Talbot. And while many reports speak of Obama's
post-law school role organizing "Project VOTE" in 1992, Foulkes makes it
clear that this project was undertaken in direct partnership with Acorn.
Foulkes then stresses Obama's yearly service as a key figure in Acorn's
leadership-training seminars.
At least a few news reports have briefly mentioned Obama's role in
training Acorn's leaders, but none that I know of have said what Foulkes
reports next: that Obama's long service with Acorn led many members to
serve as the volunteer shock troops of Obama's early political campaigns
- his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for
Congress in 2000 (Foulkes confuses the dates of these two campaigns.)
With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago Acorn
leaders, by the time of Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and
Acorn were "old friends," says Foulkes.
So along with the reservoir of political support that came to Obama
through his close ties with Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, and
other Chicago black churches, Chicago Acorn appears to have played a
major role in Obama's political advance. Sure enough, a bit of digging
into Obama's years in the Illinois State Senate indicates strong concern
with Acorn's signature issues, as well as meetings with Acorn and the
introduction by Obama of Acorn-friendly legislation on the living wage
and banking practices. You begin to wonder whether, in his Springfield
days, Obama might have best been characterized as "the Senator from
Acorn."
Foundation Money
Although it's been noted in an important story by John Fund, and in a
long Obama background piece in the New York Times, more attention needs
to be paid to possible links between Obama and Acorn during the period
of Obama's service on the boards of two charitable foundations, the
Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation.
According to the New York Times, Obama's memberships on those foundation
boards, "allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in
grants" to various liberal organizations, including Chicago Acorn,
"whose endorsement Obama sought and won in his State Senate race." As
best as I can tell (and this needs to be checked out more fully), Acorn
maintains both political and "non-partisan" arms. Obama not only sought
and received the endorsement of Acorn's political arm in his local
campaigns, he recently accepted Acorn's endorsement for the presidency,
in pursuit of which he reminded Acorn officials of his long-standing
ties to the group.
Supposedly, Acorn's political arm is segregated from its "non-partisan"
registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, but after reading Foulkes'
case study, this non-partisanship is exceedingly difficult to discern.
As I understand, it would be illegal for Obama to sit on a foundation
board and direct money to an organization that openly served as his key
get-out-the-vote volunteers on Election Day. I'm not saying Obama
crossed a legal line here: Based on Foulkes' account, Acorn's
get-out-the-vote drive most likely observed the technicalities of
"non-partisanship."
Nevertheless, the possibilities suggested by a combined reading of the
New York Times piece and the Foulkes article are disturbing. While
keeping within the technicalities of the law, Obama may have been able
to direct substantial foundation money to his organized political
supporters. I offer no settled conclusion, but the matter certainly
warrants further investigation and discussion. Obama is supposed to be
the man who transcends partisanship. Has he instead used his post at an
allegedly non-partisan foundation to direct money to a supposedly
non-partisan group, in pursuit of what are in fact nakedly partisan and
personal ends? I have no final answer, but the question needs to be
pursued further.
In fact, the broader set of practices by which activist groups pursue
intensely partisan ends under the guise of non-partisanship merits
further scrutiny. Consider the 2006 report by Jonathan Bechtle, "Voter
Turnout or Voter Fraud?" which includes a discussion of the nexus
between Project Vote and Acorn, a nexus where Obama himself once
resided. According to Bechtle, "It's clear that groups that claimed to
be nonpartisan wanted a partisan outcome," and reading Foulkes's case
study of Acorn's role in Obama's U.S. Senate campaign, one can't help
but agree.
Radical Obama
Important as these questions of funding and partisanship are, the larger
point is that Obama's ties to Acorn - arguably the most politically
radical large-scale activist group in the country - are wide, deep, and
longstanding. If Acorn is adept at creating a non-partisan, inside-game
veneer for what is in fact an intensely radical, leftist, and
politically partisan reality, so is Obama himself. This is hardly a
coincidence: Obama helped train Acorn's leaders in how to play this
game. For the most part, Obama seems to have favored the
political-insider strategy, yet it's clear that he knew how to play the
in-your-face "direct action" game as well. And surely during his many
years of close association with Acorn, Obama had to know what the group
was all about.
The shame of it is that when the L. A. Times returned to Obama's
stomping grounds, it found the park he'd helped renovate reclaimed by
drug dealers and thugs. The community organizer strategy may generate
feel-good moments and best-selling books, but I suspect a Wal-Mart as
the seed-bed of a larger shopping complex would have done far more to
save the neighborhood where Obama worked to organize in the
"progressive" fashion. Unfortunately, Obama's Acorn cronies have blocked
that solution.
In any case, if you're looking for the piece of the puzzle that confirms
and explains Obama's network of radical ties, gather your Acorns this
spring. Or next winter, you may just be left watching the "President
from Acorn" at his feast.
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