“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.”

That statement, from Sarah Palin’s convention speech last night, clearly did not sit well with the Obama campaign. The following email was sent to the Obama campaign’s email list at 5 this morning under campaign manager David Plouffe’s (rhymes with “Muff”) name:

I wasn’t planning on sending you something tonight. But if you saw what I saw from the Republican convention, you know that it demands a response.

Of course it does — at 5:11am, apparently. Anyway, continue, Mr. Plouffe.

I saw John McCain’s attack squad of negative, cynical politicians.

And I saw a convention hall full of good natured folks who, though they lacked the religious fervor of their Denver counterparts attending last week’s DNC, were more positive than they’ve been in the year-plus of this campaign, and were being entertained by very positive, even humorous speakers throughout the day.

They lied about Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and they attacked you for being a part of this campaign.

I understand that pointing fingers and screaming “Lies! All Lies!” is as much a hallmark of leftist “debate” as vigorous attempts to silence the opposition by force, but a single example of a “lie” told last night about Barack Obama and his outside-the-beltway, new-politics running mate Joe Biden is, as usual, missing from this shrill missive.

But worst of all — and this deserves to be noted — they insulted the very idea that ordinary people have a role to play in our political process.

You know that despite what John McCain and his attack squad say, everyday people have the power to build something extraordinary when we come together. Make a donation of $5 or more right now to remind them.

Will a $5 donation to Obama purchase enough of an Indulgence to allow “ordinary people” to “go back to [their] lives as usual,” “cling[ing] to guns and religion,” etc.?

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

Size added, emphasis not — he actually bolded that line about Community Organizers and how important they are.

This simple email shows that a seismic shift in initiative and momentum has taken place in this race. For the last week, the Obama camp was on offense, belittling Governor Palin’s experience, referring to her only as a “former mayor” and comparing her responsibilities ten years ago as Mayor to Obama’s current position as figurehead and spokesperson for a national campaign.

The tables turned last night when, in the course of a single speech, the Obama campaign went from full charge into an all out, rear-covering retreat, having been beaten back into a corner from which they are now struggling to lash out to defend their candidate’s pre-elective-office experience as being both important and relevant (two things it certainly is not).

The email continues:

And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.

Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America’s promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it’s happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Not only does Barack Obama himself have a well-documented pathological need to be a part of history, but now his campaign manager’s ghostwriter is trying to inflate the importance of Obama’s “community organizer” background to such a degree that he can take credit for having held a position that is singlehandedly responsible for creating and organizing the movements that led to civil rights legislation, women’s suffrage (which is a great thing until some eeeeevil Republican bombshell takes the stage as a legitimate contender for national office), and “the 40-hour workweek”? That takes some gall even for a campaign known for a measure of pluck far beyond that which its candidate has ever earned.

Meanwhile, we still haven’t gotten a single idea during the entire Republican convention about the economy and how to lift a middle class so harmed by the Bush-McCain policies.

And we haven’t heard anything from the Obama camp except stale, long-since-disproven big-government “remedies” to Americans’ problems and complaints that John McCain’s team doesn’t let their utter lack of experience and practical policy prescriptions go entirely unmentioned.

It’s now clear that John McCain’s campaign has decided that desperate lies and personal attacks — on Barack Obama and on you — are the only way they can earn a third term for the Bush policies that McCain has supported more than 90 percent of the time.

Rove! Hide your women and children! Politics of Fear! What else is there to be said? The Obama campaign has alway bordered on caricature, be it religious, political, social, or one of a handful of others. Now, clearly, The One’s campaign has moved beyond that and into outright self-parody, both of its own operation and of every far-left Democrat campaign in recent history.

Let’s wrap up the email, for closure purposes:

But you can send a crystal clear message.

Enough is enough. Make your voice heard loud and clear by making a $5 donation right now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/fightback

Thank you for joining more than 2 million ordinary Americans who refuse to be silenced.

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

How nice.