Obama was trained for his community organizing activities by Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation, which uses Alinsky’s principals to train activists. Understanding Alinsky is key to understanding Obama’s campaign.   Here are quotes from Alinsky's rules for radicals.

The Purpose of the Rules  “ a mass power organization which will change the world into a place where all men and women walk erect, in the spirit of that credo of the Spanish Civil War, “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”.   This means revolution.”

Of Means and Ends –

“You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.”

“A naked illustration of this (above) point is to be found in Trotsky’s summary of Lenin’s famous April Theses, issued shortly after Lenin’s return from exile … They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.”

The Education of an Organizer --

• “The first step in community organization is disorganization.”
• “In the beginning, the organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems.”
• “An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.”

Tactics

1.  “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”

2.   “Never go outside the experience of your people.”

3.   “Whenever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.”

4.   “Make the enemy live up to there own rulebook”

5.   “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

6.   “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

7.   “A tactic that drags on becomes a drag.”

8.   “Keep the pressure on.”

9.   “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain           a constant pressure on the opposition.”

11. “ If you push a negative hard enough and deep enough it will break through to its            counterside … In a fight, almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where      you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt.”

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk  being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand.”

13. “ Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

“The real action is in the enemy’s reaction. The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength. Tactics, like life, require that you move with the action.”