Ivy League Volunteers Dissed By Obama?

Courtesy of KosherDutchAfro over at OpenLeft, apparently some Obama insiders are saying that he's trying to escape Ivy Leaguers (like, obviously, us), despite being one himself. (Thanks to Phil Grimm for the link.)

My source within the Obama campaign in Chicago has told me campaign employees have had it up to their ears with overly ambitious Ivy League volunteers who have been causing problems for the campaign by putting their individual ambitions over the larger goals of the campaign as a movement. This employee and fellow South Side native has shared with me that the campaign is getting a sense that the attitudes of dedicated Ivy League volunteers had, over the course of the primary, given Republicans enough stories to run with the 'elitist' trope in the general election.

In Pennsylvania, where the campaign lost big time to Hillary due to pushy Penn students stoking conflict with long-time city activists, the Obama campaign has instituted a training that teaches volunteers how to be sensitive to existing communities.

"They (Ivy League) students come on with this attitude that this is their big break," the source said as she edited a video for the campaign in the Roosevelt Road Kinko's. "I've got news for them, they're not getting jobs."

Evidently, according to this source, Senator Obama himself feels Ivy League graduates have held sway over Washington too long and even though he attended Harvard and Columbia, if elected, he intends to do very little hiring from the Ivies. "There is a general sense around the campaign that the Ivy kids are self-interested and out of touch with the general campaign culture."

Their solution? Go for ambitious, determined, self-interested campaign staff (who might just have the added advantage of being Ivy League rejects) from Northwestern and U Chicago instead. 

As the campaign advances into the general election, word from the inside is that additional general election hiring will lean heavily towards Midwestern colleges.  

As I'm just about to leave work at my posh unpaid internship that the Ivy League gave me access to (that's sarcasm; I'm here on my own, and I live in a basement), I won't go into this very much. But I do have to say that I've met a lot of people who write me off immediately because I'm from Harvard, and that if this source is correct, I'm terribly disappointed with the Obama campaign.

No, the Ivy League isn't a perfect meritocracy; no, we're not all perfect, or even deserving of being here; no, we don't represent America -- but neither does any campaign staff. It should be the most passionate, intelligent, hardworking, motivated, skilled group he can find, the most interested in politics and in the campaign and in the future of this country -- no matter what school they go to. I don't think ambition should be a disqualification at all. And I know through my own experience that progressive "campaign culture." at least among interest groups, is often dismissive of the people it needs the most. I'd hope the Obama campaign doesn't make the same mistake.

Thoughts? (Markus Kolic, I'm looking at you.)