Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 52-53:
Power is the dynamo of life… Every organization known to man, from government down, has had only one reason for being – that is, organization for power in order to put into practice or promote its common purpose… To know power and not fear it is essential to its constructive use and control. In short, life without power is death; a world without power would be a ghostly wasteland, a dead plant!
From Jon Meachum’s profile of President Barack Obama, in the newly redesigned Newsweek:
What he has learned is that he likes, and enjoys, power—the capacity to shape reality in his image and by his lights—and that he finds crisis defining, bracing and useful. That a president feels suited to power is hardly a startling observation, but that Obama so revels in it—in the understated way Obama revels in anything—confounds the competing popular impressions of his persona.
As mentioned earlier, I’ll be discussing Alinsky’s influence on Obama on Sean Hannity’s television show tonight. Airs at 9 p.m. Eastern.