WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
New Orleans ACORN had one-crew on the ground in metro Atlanta in the get-out-the-vote effort for the recent Senate election, recruited largely from Pennsylvania by longtime organizer and Pittsburgh activist and music aficionado, Maryellen Deckard. They were revisiting the turf we had hit two-years ago in the special runoff election to culminate the …
New Orleans The rightwing, Republican posturing around voting has really officially gone from the ridiculous to the absurd. This is shadowboxing to appease the base. Nothing more. I vote by mail in Louisiana. Why not? I travel regularly. We vote on Saturdays. If I didn’t vote by mail, I would be trying to …
Chicago My mother always insisted after every birthday and Christmas, and it seemed like a host of other occasions, that my brother and I write “thank you” notes. That lesson set hard on my brother, and he embraced it as a good thing. I didn’t disagree with the practice, but often it was bottom-of-the-list-business …