Former ACORN Leader to Head Obama's Reelection Campaign

The man who holds the equivalent of the job Karl Rove held in the Bush administration is apparently leaving that gig to head up Organizing For America (OFA) so he can work on Obama's reelection campaign. Patrick Gaspard is apparently a seasoned Alinsky-ite as well. The gall here is palpable though. As Republicans in the House consider mixed seating at Tuesday's State of the Union speech in order to demonstrate civility, Obama taps a guy who used to lead an organization that's already proven to be thoroughly corrupt, to coordinate his reelection efforts.

Via Matthew Vadum at the Daily Caller:

Gaspard comes from the same world of radical left-wing community organizing that shaped Barack Obama. Gaspard is well schooled in the brutal, street-smart organizing tactics taught by the late Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals. He’s the hatchet man Obama sent to New York over a year ago to strong-arm then-Gov. David Paterson into dropping his reelection campaign. As executive director running the DNC’s day-to-day operations Gaspard will oversee Organizing for America, a project of the DNC supposedly modeled on Alinskyite organizing principles. (Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will remain as general chairman of the DNC.)

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haitian parents, very little is known about this Rasputin-like power behind the throne. Gaspard shuns publicity and is extremely reluctant to speak to the media on the record. Look him up on Nexis and you will find virtually nothing about this otherwise influential counselor to the leader of the free world.

But his colleagues hold him in high esteem. “Patrick is the best political mind of his generation in New York and maybe the nation,” according to Kevin Sheekey, a lieutenant of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. “I wouldn’t dispute that,” added David Axelrod, a senior advisor in the Obama White House.

Gaspard came to the White House from ACORN’s favorite labor organization, Service Employees International Union. (SEIU Locals 100 and 880 were until recently official affiliates of ACORN.) He had been executive vice president for political and legislative affairs for SEIU Local 1199 United Healthcare Workers East, which claims to be the largest union local on the planet “representing more than 300,000 members and retirees in New York, Maryland, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts.”

Gaspard was previously revealed to be political director for ACORN’s New York branch. Although the source of this information, ACORN founder Wade Rathke, has since feigned senility and claimed he was mistaken, other evidence points to Gaspard’s involvement with the nation’s most notorious activist group.

Read it all.