The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Dan Kervick's picture

    I Feel So Special

    By Dan Kervick on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 11:52am |

    Some of you no doubt received the following email today.

    Note that the NY Times reported this week that Obama had a meeting recently with two dozen Wall Street execs, and has a dinner planned latter this month for fiancial industry high rollers at Daniels in Manhattan.

    I doubt these guys had to enter some humiliating win-a-date contest to sit down with the president.  And if you're a player, you don't even need lobbyists or a PAC.  You get direct face-to-face access.

     

    Dan --

    I've set aside time for four supporters like you to join me for dinner.

    Most campaigns fill their dinner guest lists primarily with Washington lobbyists and special interests.

    We didn't get here doing that, and we're not going to start now. We're running a different kind of campaign. We don't take money from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs -- we never have, and we never will.

    We rely on everyday Americans giving whatever they can afford -- and I want to spend time with a few of you.

    So if you make a donation today, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to be one of the four supporters to sit down with me for dinner. Please donate $75 or more today:

    https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner-with-Barack

    We'll pay for your flight and the dinner -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas about how we can continue to make this a better country for all Americans.

    This won't be a formal affair. It's the kind of casual meal among friends that I don't get to have as often as I'd like anymore, so I hope you'll consider joining me.

    But I'm not asking you to donate today just so you'll be entered for a chance to meet me. I'm asking you to say you believe in the kind of politics that gives people like you a seat at the table -- whether it's the dinner table with me or the table where decisions are made about what kind of country we want to be.

    It starts with a gift of whatever you can afford.

    Please make a donation of $75 today, and we'll throw your name in the hat for the upcoming dinner:

    https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner-with-Barack

    I've said before that I want people like you to shape this campaign from the very beginning -- and this is a chance for four people to share their ideas directly with me.

    Hope to see you soon,

    Barack

    Comments

    Did you get your Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes "YOU ARE ALREADY A WINNER!" envelope, too, Dan?  Damnation; we always knew you were special.   ;o)

    Will you let us take up a collection here for the 75 bucks so you can have a chance to tell your story?  I'm in for a sawbuck; check that;  a fiver.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 12:06pm

    I was thinkin of attending but I just could not find a tie that would match my sneakers!


    by Richard Day on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 1:23pm

    Don't worry Richard.  Even if you can't attend, you might still be in the running for a collectors' set of official Barack Obama TM bobblehead dolls, a specially minted "Obama in 2012" commemorative gold coin or a free tank of gas at your local gas station.


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 1:40pm

    I got that one in my inbox, too.  It was the email with subject line "Dinner".  

    Apparently, the right person did not get my request of a month ago to kindly take me off their fundraising and volunteer request distribution list.

    This one just irritated me.  He really, really wants to have schmos like me help "shape his campaign from the very beginning"--so long as I give him $75.

    I thought he was really serious about this business about reaching out to people who don't agree with him?  I would think he might want to limit lottery entrants to those who don't, and won't, give him any money. 

    Better yet, limit it to those dedicated to defeating him next year. 

    Just imagine the potential optics with that.  It could be the closest thing to a true kumbaya moment we are likely to see in American politics for the next generation.


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 3:04pm

    We might all be better off becoming Republicans and trying to push them to the center, Democrats and our compromiser-in chief Obama seem incapable of forming, promoting and sticking to a progressive agenda.


    by NCD on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 4:49pm

    Here's more change we can believe in:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110614/bs_yblog_thelookout/workers-share-of-national-income-plummets-to-record-low


    by Dan Kervick on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 4:54pm

    If Romney does somehow manage to get the nomination--and those poll numbers showing him leading in a one-on-one with Obama must have GOP party officials and operatives salivating--does anyone really want to bet against his ability to come off looking more aggressive, as having more ideas, more of a plan of action for what to do on the economy, than Obama? 

    Could be a bit like what happened with the financial reform issue, where some Republicans actually ran campaign ads last fall making it appear as though they were tougher on the big banksters on behalf of the ordinary Janes and Joes than their Democratic opponents, and no one died laughing because too many people couldn't tell much difference between the parties on that issue.

    This election could yet end up having some similar dynamics as Bush 41's re-election bid.  Following a (what was then thought to be) major foreign policy triumph, the mostly impressively managed, broadly multilateral ejection of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, his public approval ratings were 90%, something like that.  His advisors begged him to at least look as though he might possibly be thinking about talking to somebody about the possibility of considering doing something, maybe, sort of, about the bad economy.  He declined, and lost to Clinton, who did look as though he was intent on doing something about it.

    Many folks around here, even if they don't love him, see Bill Clinton as the jedi master when it comes to Dem pols who know how to win elections.  Bill Clinton has long said that all elections are about the future.  Voters don't want you to tell them about what you've done for them (they'll make up their own minds about that).  They want to know what you intend to do for them going forward if they give you their vote. I hope the Obama campaign, and most importantly the President himself in due course, will come up with a more appealing answer to that question than Mitt Romney and his people would be able to come up with.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 5:43pm

    Au contraire mon amie. Democrats are *awesome* at forming a progressive agenda. Re-read the platform Democrats promoted in 2008.

    The problem has been entirely in sticking to an agenda that was formed and promoted by Obama and the Democrats last time team D can be said to have won an election. What you all ran on was great. Obama's BS isn't that.


    by kgb999 on Thu, 06/16/2011 - 2:13am

    Was the letter dated April 1, ?


    by Resistance on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 6:44pm

    I wonder if you would even get through their screening. 


    by Saladin on Thu, 06/16/2011 - 1:49am