Obama comes to town.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note - Barack Obama

I tried to see President Obama speak when he came to Madison on September 28. But I didn't get down to the event in time to be allowed in. So I walked up to State Street Brats (that's "brats" as in "bratwurst," not "brats" as in "snotty kids") and watched him on TV with about 200 other people outside the restaurant.

One woman yelled at the screen: "We need you to quit this war. If you said that, we'd be happy." A couple of people clapped in agreement with her.

But most of the crowd loved the speech, especially when he returned to his 2008 empowerment language. That campaign, he said, "was not just about putting me in the White House. It was about building a movement for change that went beyond any one campaign or any one candidate."

Unfortunately, for the first twenty months of his Administration, he didn't govern like he was building a movement for change. In fact, he anesthetized whatever movement there was (and it was more a phenomenon than a movement) by taking an elitist, Washington approach, trying to buy off some industries, like pharmaceuticals, and trying to pick off a few Republicans, instead of mobilizing his base. This strategy failed. He needs to get serious about movement politics--and not just pay it lip service at election time.

O n September 24, the FBI raided the homes of six political activists in the Twin Cities and two in Chicago in an effort to prosecute them under the anti-terrorism laws.

Two of the activists in the Twin Cities were heavily involved in organizing the protests at the Republican Convention in 2008.

The raid smacked of old-fashioned McCarthyism. On one search warrant, the FBI demanded all materials related to the "finances of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization," as well as information about "the recruitment" and "indoctrination" of members. It also demanded a list of "recruits."

Hey, I thought we had freedom of speech and...