His name is Nate Hundt, and he's really become part of the community." As he spoke, several other Algonans gathered around and began recounting tales of the young organizer who had come straight to Algona after graduating from Yale six months earlier. Hundt had opened a campaign headquarters in the H&R Block office downtown, joined a local environmental group, shown up for the high school football games. He was a constant presence at civic events. Eventually, Hundt became so much a part of the community that the town leaders asked him to stay on after the caucuses and run for city council. But Hundt had other work to do. The Obama campaign sent him to Colorado, Ohio and North Carolina during the long primary season, then back to Colorado Springs for the general election. "I'm still in touch with my friends from Algona," Hundt said. "In fact, a few of them have come out here to help canvass. But I'm not unique. There are a lot of us who had similar experiences."

Indeed, there are — an army of them, untold thousands of young organizers operating out of more than 700 offices nationwide. And they have delivered a message to Rudy Giuliani, who sneered during the Republican National Convention that he didn't even know "what a community organizer is." This is who they are: they are the people who won this election. They were the heart and soul and backbone of Barack Obama's victory. They are destined to emerge as the next significant generation of American political operatives — similar to the antiwar and antisegregation baby boomers who dominated the Democratic Party after cutting their teeth on the Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy campaigns of 1968, similar to the pro-life, antitax Reaganauts who dominated the Republican Party and American politics from the election of 1980 ... until now. They are a preview of the style and substance of the Obama Administration.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1856649,00.html?imw=Y