One of the links in the article is this:
http://www.chicagodsa.org/ngarchive/ng42.html
At that link is this:
“Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer . . . .”
I have never heard that Obama was Chief of Staff for Palmer. Somebody should find out if that is true and if not, why his article described Obama in this way.
That is strange.
I know that Obama was her hand picked successor:
“African Americans have fought hard for these positions. His seniority is extremely important and we should not make light of it,” said former state Sen. Alice Palmer, a veteran leader of the state’s black independent political movement who had touted Obama as her successor when she gave up her seat in an unsuccessful bid for Congress.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20011023192549/http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/rush28.html
But I’ve never seen him listed as a chief of staff. Probably a mistake or it means something to these DSA types... who knows. I’ll see if I can find anything else.
Very interesting...
Palmer was huge into the New Party and the DSA
“In the next two elections in the city - the special election to fill Mel Reynolds congressional seat in November and a general election in April, 1996 - the New Party has taken a slightly different approach. It organized a citywide candidates forum and invited a number of progressive candidates. Of those responding, two were of special interest, Alice Palmer and Willie Delgado. Alice Palmer is an Illinois state senator and Willie Delgado is an activist with an anti-Machine coalition of Latinos led by State Senator Miguel Del Valle.
Both of these campaigns have strong local organizations that run as Democrats but are consistently opposed by the regular Democrats. Both are rooted in working-class communities with a large percentage of labor and left activists in their organizational structures. Alice Palmer especially has a long history with the African American left. Lou Pardo, a labor leader and New Party activist, is a strategist and organizer for Delgado.
Both Palmer and Delgado attended the forum and were thoroughly questioned by 70 or so New Party members. At the close, both publicly signed a “contract” with the New Party that was more
formal and detailed than the agreement with Chandler. Two weeks later, the New Party formally endorsed them and is now mobilizing support.”
source: http://web.archive.org/web/20010528042749/www.cofc.org/Publications/d12.htm
I wish we had more time! This web of Chicago socialism is impressive :)
Obama would have had to undergo that same interrogation and contract signing to get the NP endorsement.