Saul Alinsky Rides Again as Gingrich Makes Him 2012 Bogeyman
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Saul Alinsky has been dead for almost 40 years, yet the community organizer is back for another presidential campaign. This time he’s been dragged from his grave by Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, who says the Chicago activist’s “radicalism is at the heart of Obama.”
Alinsky is a forefather of modern-day Chicago politics whose organizing practices are still taught on college campuses. Though he isn’t a household name even in his hometown, since the 2008 campaign he’s been Republican shorthand for radical political thought -- part of a lineup including Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor, and Bill Ayers, who co-founded the Weather Underground decades before he served with Obama on the board of an education-reform group.