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A little while ago, the media reported Obama's political education in community organizing in Chicago. Apparently, Obama is not the only presidential hopeful steeped in the tradition of legendary Jewish organizer Saul Alinsky.

MSNBC reports about Hillary Clinton's senior thesis about Saul Alinsky, which has been kept out of the public eye by her alma mater Wellesley College in the eight years that she served as first lady.

The Clintons were worried enough that "it was [they] who asked Wellesley in 1993 to hide Hillary Rodham's senior thesis from the first generation of Clinton biographers."

After the thesis was made public in 2001, it has appeared in a range of right-wing media who believe the 92-page thesis from nearly 40 years ago is the "Rosetta Stone" that will uncover her early "Marxist" and "socialist" thinking.

As the article reminds us, the young Hillary Rodham grew up as a Goldwater Republican in a middle-class Chicago suburb. She met Saul Alinsky on a Methodist church outing organized by her youth minister who was "introducing the youth of white, comfortable Park Ridge to social action." In her senior year at Wellesley, she interviewed him several times for her thesis:

Rodham opened the thesis by casting Alinsky as he cast himself, in a "peculiarly American" tradition of democrats, from Thomas Paine through Martin Luther King. "Democracy is still a radical idea," she wrote, "in a world where we often confuse images with realities, words with actions."

And yet, she continued, "Much of what Alinsky professes does not sound `radical.' His are the words used in our schools and churches, by our parents and their friends, by our peers. The difference is that Alinsky really believes in them and recognizes the necessity of changing the present structures of our lives in order to realize them."<!--more-->

In her paper, she accepted Alinsky's view that the problem of the poor isn't so much a lack of money as a lack of power, as well as his view of federal anti-poverty programs as ineffective. "A cycle of dependency has been created," she wrote, "which ensnares its victims into resignation and apathy."

In formal academic language, Rodham offered a "perspective" or muted critique on Alinsky's methods, sometimes leaving unclear whether she was quoting his critics or stating her own opinion. She cited scholars who claimed that Alinsky's small gains actually delayed attainment of bigger goals for the poor and minorities.

In criticizing the "few material gains" that Alinsky engineered -- such as pressing Kodak Co. to hire blacks in Rochester, or delaying the University of Chicago's expansion into the Woodlawn neighborhood -- Rodham placed part of the blame on demography, the diminishing role of neighborhoods in American life.

Another part she laid charitably to an Alinsky character trait: "One of the primary problems of the Alinsky model is that the removal of Alinsky dramatically alters its composition," she wrote. "Alinsky is a born organizer who is not easily duplicated, but, in addition to his skill, he is a man of exceptional charm."

In the end, she judged that Alinsky's "power/conflict model is rendered inapplicable by existing social conflicts" -- overriding national issues such as racial tension and segregation. Alinsky had no success in forming an effective national movement, she said, referring dismissively to "the anachronistic nature of small autonomous conflict."

She noted, however, that he was trying to broaden his reach: In 1969, Alinsky was developing an institute in Chicago at his Industrial Areas Foundation, aimed at training organizers to galvanize a surprising target: the middle class. That was the job he offered to Hillary Rodham.

As we know, she did not take that job and instead entered Yale Law School where she began dating a certain Bill Clinton. Still, the story is great testiment to the "radical" ideas of Saul Alinsky that affected two of the foremost Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Were these ideas effective? I don't know. The 21-year-old Hillary Rodham was right to critically examine the effectiveness of the Alinsky model. Still, the ongoing endurance of Alinky's methods nationwaide is likely testament to their ongoing relevance.

And in the meanwhile, who knows if more Presidential hopefuls will come out with their own connection to Alinsky. I hear McCain was also a disciple ;-)

One of the most important pieces of the progressive agenda, the Employee Free Choice Act, goes to a floor vote in the House of Representatives on March 1. A number of allies have issued statements and alerts this week to mobilize their members on the bill, including: Human Rights Watch, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP, and the Sierra Club.

It's not too late to encourage your members, constituents and friends to contact their representatives to tell them to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. Click here to send an email to your representative. For more information, check out the wonderful resources put together by American Rights at Work.