THE ALINSKY ELECTION. Ryan Lizza, whose byline has been missed of late, is back with a New York Times magazine-length treatment of Barack Obama's Chicago years, which graces the cover of the new New Republic. Ryan digs down into the community organizing that Obama did in Illinois, and how his understanding of power politics was influenced by the thinking of Chicago organizer Saul Alinsky. Given that Hillary Clinton wrote her undergraduate thesis on Alinksy, and that the Clinton campaign's Karen Hicks has also been influenced by his thinking, Alinsky is starting to look like one of the most important theorists of election 2008. Ryan also digs up Obama's 1990 chapter from After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois. Worth a look.
UPDATE: Mark Schmitt reminds me that the first outlet to post the 1990 Obama piece was Tapped, at the end of January. And indeed it was.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
