It Ain't Easy Out There For a Community Organizer

The thing most people don't understand about community organizing is that it's actually a very challenging field.  For instance, if you used your political office to secure a 6-figure grant to build a neighborhood garden, you'd probably see to it that the funds went to building that garden.  This is a rookie mistake.

The correct answer is: Give it to your friends.  Friends who may not actually intend to "build" a "garden", but who do have enough sense to launder it through their spouses' shell companies.

You know - the way Jesus and John Adams did it.

A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.

The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.

Smith wrote another $20,000 in grant-related checks to K.D. Contractors, a construction company that his wife, Karen D. Smith, created five months after work on the garden was supposed to have begun, records show. K.D. is no longer in business.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan — a Democrat who is supporting Obama’s presidential bid — is investigating “whether this charitable organization properly used its charitable assets, including the state funds it received,” Cara Smith, Madigan’s deputy chief of staff, said Wednesday.

In addition to the 2001 grant that Obama directed to the housing association as a “member initiative,” the not-for-profit group got a separate $20,000 state grant in 2006.

(HT: Malkin)

Update:  Here's additional evidence of Obama's organizing acumen.  If he hadn't showered Karen Smith with taxpayer dollars back then, she may have been less inclined to help finance Obama's Presidential campaign.

The Sun-Times article notes that Kenny Smith has also contributed $550 to Obama ($300 in 1999 and $250 in 2001).

$1,550 may not seem like a great return on $100,000, but when you're using taxpayer money, it's all upside, baby!

Consider yourself organized, Englewood.