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Among other things, Obama worked with the faith-based Developing Communities Project (DCP) to pressure the city government to inspect and remove asbestos from local apartment buildings, organize voter registrations drives and local education reform movements, prevent the expansion of landfills into poor residential areas, built playgrounds, and set-up after-school programs.

And all for the whopping annual salary of $13K, plus the use of a beat-up Honda Civic to get around.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Among other things, Obama worked with the faith-based Developing Communities Project (DCP) to pressure the city government to inspect and remove asbestos from local apartment buildings, organize voter registrations drives and local education reform movements, prevent the expansion of landfills into poor residential areas, built playgrounds, and set-up after-school programs.

And all for the whopping annual salary of $13K, plus the use of a beat-up Honda Civic to get around.

While I don't think community service is anything to sneer at, 13,000 in 1985 would be equal to about $24-25k today. And I started my first out of college job a large law firm in 1990 for about $16,000 dollars. And they didn't give me a car. And I didn't go to Harvard after three years, and write a book about myself that made me a millionaire.

And of course, if one is going to run for office somewhere, it doesn't hurt to 'organize' the votes first, as well as hook up with the local power brokers.

But hey, Chicago is a sparkling example today of what such efforts can do, isn't it?

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Don't hurt yourself tripping over somethng as you back away from your original position.

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And of course, if one is going to run for office somewhere, it doesn't hurt to 'organize' the votes first, as well as hook up with the local power brokers.

But hey, Chicago is a sparkling example today of what such efforts can do, isn't it?

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Wow, Jack. And to think people call me cynical...so much for the virtues of hard work.

But just for grins, please recall that after taxes, Obama's take home pay would have been somewhere around $10K.

A king's ransom, to be sure.

Plus, no one forced Obama to write his first book, nor anyone to publish it, much less buy it and make it a bestseller - from which the royalties were largely used to help pay off Barack and Michelle's student loans.

Elitist, indeed...

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ORIGINAL: todd_t

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Wow, I wish my guidance counselor spoke with me about "community organizing" as a career path.

Why is there so much snooty derision about Obama's decision to turn down a high-paying job at a New York law firm straight out of school, and instead accept a difficult, low paying, and often thankless job of trying to improve the lives of people on the south side of Chicago?

I'm hard pressed to see an act that's more noble, and Christ-like.

All the success Obama encountered after this time in Illinois politics was due to hard work, and beating the bricks.

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ORIGINAL: huangshan

Seems pretty straightforward to me...?

There are no private beaches in Hawaii.

McCain campaign says there is.

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ORIGINAL: inthysite

My intentions were nothing more than to report a story that I thought was funny and knew would open a can of worms on this forum. Thank you for proving my point!

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ORIGINAL: davemiller7

Well, it certainly did open a can of worms. Now, do any of us really care how many houses he has? Those on the left appear to care, judging from the response.

-Dave

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ORIGINAL: inthysite

My intentions were nothing more than to report a story that I thought was funny and knew would open a can of worms on this forum. Thank you for proving my point!

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ORIGINAL: WesP

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ORIGINAL: davemiller7

Well, it certainly did open a can of worms. Now, do any of us really care how many houses he has? Those on the left appear to care, judging from the response.

-Dave

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ORIGINAL: inthysite

My intentions were nothing more than to report a story that I thought was funny and knew would open a can of worms on this forum. Thank you for proving my point!

Well, in truth, we have established that any number of houses x > the number of Obama's houses y = evil!

or that

if any person in the Republican party does not know how many properties he/she owns, then they are clueless concerning the concerns and plights of average Joe.

Pretty logical, really.

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You're right, of course. But one question (for the whole readership in general)............... how many houses does it take to be the equivalent of John Edwards 20K+ sq ft mansion? Seems like Edwards' place ought to count as more than just one.

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That would be about 63,000 dollars in 2008 cash. It was well above the median income then, and a lot of folks would like to be making that before they were thirty now.

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And of course, if one is going to run for office somewhere, it doesn't hurt to 'organize' the votes first, as well as hook up with the local power brokers.

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Where are you getting your stats?

According to the following, the 1992 US dollar was at best valued (via the GDP deflator) at 72 cents less than the 2007 value.

http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/

So assuming Obama was making $35K at most back then, cut that salary by 28% to get the actual buying power in modern-day numbers which adds up to $25,200.

And that's on the high side.

Were one to use the low end (relative GDP share) of the 1992/2007 value scale, $35K in '92 cash drops to a modern equivalent of just over $16K via a 54% decline in value.

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“Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?” the McCain camp responded [to Obama's attack ad over McCain's failure to recall how many properties he owns].

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I'm not sure it's meant to be funny though. But either way, it's a loser for McCain re: are his concerns the same as the concerns of Americans?

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One would have to be blind to think that McCain is "one of us".

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

While I don't think community service is anything to sneer at, 13,000 in 1985 would be equal to about $24-25k today. And I started my first out of college job a large law firm in 1990 for about $16,000 dollars. And they didn't give me a car. And I didn't go to Harvard after three years, and write a book about myself that made me a millionaire.

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ORIGINAL: tafkam

I would venture that they are both rich, and like most politicians, both hopelessly out of touch...

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ORIGINAL: henny

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

While I don't think community service is anything to sneer at, 13,000 in 1985 would be equal to about $24-25k today. And I started my first out of college job a large law firm in 1990 for about $16,000 dollars. And they didn't give me a car. And I didn't go to Harvard after three years, and write a book about myself that made me a millionaire.

I'm not sure how Obama's decision to enter community service after graduation can be denigrated -no matter how "ineffective" you think his particular community service was. Arguing over whether he made 13,000 or 25,000 a year out of college is kind of meaningless, given that he graduated at the top of his class at Columbia so he could have easily gone immediately to Harvard law school, graduated, and then have been making millions working for one of the nation's top law firms. But he didn't (Heck, I worked for 2 years before going to grad school and didn't go to an Ivy league school like Colombia, and I was still able to find a job making 25,000 a year with just a BA in English and Anthropology, so I imagine Obama had many much more lucrative options than the one he decided on).

Even after graduating (magna cum laude) with a JD from Harvard (which again, is absolutely nothing to sneer at, as one doesn't do such a thing without work), he still took some sort of community service route in his career and taught, as oppossed to working for a large law firm (which again, would suggest that he sincerely wanted to help people, even if you don't think that his efforts did "help" anyone).

I realize that you disagree with him on all the issues, so there's no chance you'll ever be voting for him, but I still think you have to give him credit for his accomplishments and decisions where credit is due.

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Why is there so much snooty derision about Obama's decision to turn down a high-paying job at a New York law firm straight out of school, and instead accept a difficult, low paying, and often thankless job of trying to improve the lives of people on the south side of Chicago?