During the 2008 election, Republicans bent themselves backwards questioning Obama's credentials because, after all, he was just a "community organizer." Well if anything has been proven by the current election cycle, it's that being a community organizer is much better preparation for the presidency than being a financial services CEO.
The truth is that being a community organizer forces you to define your work in terms of a purpose; in this case the purpose is to help people build better lives for themselves and their communities. We can argue all day long as to whether or not being a community organizer actually makes a difference in the lives of the people you are trying to help, but nobody would question the purpose itself.
On the other hand, if you are the CEO of a financial services company, the purpose of your work is defined by how much money you make for your firm. Period. End of story. In this respect, your mind-set is as far away from the mind-set of a community organizer as Earth is from Mars.
It's somewhat ironic that the Republicans should deride Obama's experience as a community organizer because, after all, it's the Republicans who claim to be such champions of local communities. They're against Big Government, remember, because problems can best be solved at the local (read: community) level, government operates most efficiently at the local (read: community) level, inefficiency and waste can be controlled at the local (read: community) level, and so forth.
Whether or not the Republicans actually believe the contrast between Big Government and local community is besides the point. The fact is that they have a candidate for President who doesn't understand it at all. How else can you account for this "47 percent" comment? It wasn't that he was in a room with a bunch of Fat Cats and didn't know he was being taped. It's that this is the way he has been trained to think. Got a problem? Don't sit down with the community to figure out what they want Just ask your marketing people to figure out what they want.
Know why a majority of Americans believe that Obama can be trusted more than Romney to understand their problems? Because he knows how to talk to them. And that's what being a community organizer is all about. You go out into the community and you listen to what people have to say. Which career path prepares you better to be President of every American community? We'll know in less than 40 days but at this point it appears that being a community organizer works quite well.