The activist teaching the poor to pull themselves out of the morass of their misery. His means: Networking and confrontation.

Grey Eminence: Saul Alinsky

Exploded shortly after 20 clock Seattle in ecstasy: firecrackers hissing into the sky, strangers fall weeping into each others arms, while I realize slow: Today, on 4 November 2008, began the new millennium. For ten days Im in the 37th District of the Pacific metropolis for the Obama campaign worked as an assistant, called several thousand voters in the evenings hundreds visited and instructed dozens of other volunteers, as they sell the Obama message on the phone quickly and at the front door. Our commitment and a million other campaign workers across the country, is crowned with success: Barack Obama is the new President of the United States of America.

How was that possible?  We asked ourselves perplexed at the noise-election party, which lasted until the wee hours. Even U.S. citizens could not believe it: a multicultural African-Americans with no political power base, the Bush Republicans and the Clinton dynasty wiped away without having a real program, just with “Hope for Change”. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic crisis, the unresolved energy and environmental issues: With charisma and rhetoric alone would not have gotten small Obamas political opponents. Even the Internet, using his team so masterfully and blessed the campaign with a windfall of 600 million dollars in small donations was good, but not enough to explain the meteoric rise of this outsider to the most powerful man in the world.