Not surprising — Romney’s daddy, whom he lists as his mentor, was a friend of Alinsky and promoted him within the GOP.
Except we call it, KarmAlinsky. “What goes around, comes around.”
Some more of Rule #5
Twitter is (as they say) on fire tonight
http://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23OverheardAtDNC2012
‘Overheard At DNC 2012’ is great!
Making them live up to their own rules? Please. Pointing out Obama's broken campaign promises is not what Alinsky taught. A better example would be making them live up to their own impossible standards of political correctness, or accusing them of using racist 'dog whistles,' or pointing out their excessive use of energy despite their claims of how 'green' they are (Eastwood did this to Obama Thursday night).
The left does this to the right when they discover Republicans performing homosexual toe-tapping in men's rooms, or having extramarital affairs, or accuse them of paying for abortions. Broken campaign promises don't have quite the same sting as accusations of hypocrisy committed against one's own declared moral belief system. That's what Alinsky meant by making your opponent live up to his own rules. 'Hoisting by one's own petard,' as it were.
Regarding Rule 11: If you follow Alinksy, you don't attack and then offer the constructive alternative yourself. The Alinskyite tactic is to make the opponent (or 'enemy' if you're Obama) offer the constructive alternative when he attacks you - e.g. "You're right. I don't know how to solve this problem. What is your plan?" You would have to be fairly confident that your opponent doesn't have that plan. One could say that Romney was actually countering the Alinskyite tactic before it was employed.
As for pick the target, polarize, freeze ..., well, Romney is running against Obama and his failed presidency. It doesn't take a radical Alinskyite to identify that particular target. But Alinsky was talking about putting a face to a faceless target on a more local level. If you want to fight City Hall, which is a faceless, inhuman entity, you can't do that as effectively as if you pick a person as a scapegoat and gin up hatred among the masses against him, a la Snowball in Animal Farm, or Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984.
A little ridicule from Clint Eastwood does not an Alinskyite campaign make. I seriously doubt Romney's campaign is going to sink to the level of an Alinsky operation.
Well, it's about freaking time. I was wondering how long it would take the Republicans (and even a few folks around here) to stop whining about the rats' use of Alinsky tactics (as if they were classified materials available only to the rats) and start employing them themselves AGAINST the rats.
Now, the day I see conservative activists employ "the diamond tactic" at a big public gathering I will really be impressed.
He likes to talk about military options though.