The Republican vision harks back toward the original eighteenth-century US electorate--white men of property. Republicans are very suspicious of universal suffrage, which would endanger the wealth of the "legiitmate" white properited electorate through redistribution if everybody--even the poor, immigrants, and minorities--had a real guaranteed opportunity to vote. See page 22 of Alexander Keyssar's "The Right to Vote", at
http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0465029698 :
"Give the votes to people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich who will be able to buy them. We should not confine our attention to the present moment. The time is not distant when this country will abound with mechanics and manufacturers who will receive their bread from their employers. Will such men be the secure and faithful guardians of liberty? Will they be the impregnable barrier against aristocracy?"
The democratic vision of Alinsky and his modern-day followers is STARKLY different. See the special newsletter issue on "Community Organizing" at
http://www.prrac.org/full_text.php?text_id=964&item_id=8814&newsletter_id=0&header=Community+Organizing :
"Community organizing is ... about restoring local democracy and accountability to communities--and about building leadership and empowering the disenfranchised in the process."