FriendBurst Blog

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been getting constant emails with everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Obama’s bodyguard telling me that I need to send $3 to Obama’s campaign in a chance to have dinner with Obama.  Today I finally had enough and hit the “unsubscribe” button.  Not that I even remember subscribing in the first place.  I guess that’s what happens when you do tons of petitions.  Anyway, here’s what I had to say when they asked me why I was unsubscribing:

To begin with, like most Americans that I know, I’m broke.  I have absolutely no money to donate to Obama’s campaign.  Especially nothing that would compare to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he’s receiving from lobbyists this year.

To send repeated emails to jobless and impoverished Americans asking them to donate to Obama’s campaign in exchange for a chance to have dinner with him is a slap in the face.  Come on!  I couldn’t even afford the decent clothes that would be required for me to attend a dinner like that, much less get myself to Washington.  Even if I was being flown to Washington (all expenses paid) I couldn’t afford the gas or the parking fees to make it to an airport.

I know life is much different in Washington, where money flows rather freely and politicians have golden medical plans.  I know it’s probably very easy to become disconnected from the hardships that most normal Americans are going through right now.  It would serve Obama’s campaign well to at least pretend to understand that dinner with Barack and Michelle is a total alien priority to families whose first and foremost concern is keeping the heat on and food in their children’s stomachs.

If I did have any extra money laying around, I’d be saving that money for myself and my family.  Considering president Obama has caved to Republican demands to slowly dismantle the social safety net and environmental safeguards over and over and over, we will need that money.  Whether it will be spent on health issues due to fallout from the BP oilspill, the Keystone XL pipeline, lax water quality, or from the all-out assault on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

I can no longer politically support a president who meets behind closed doors in order to appease the demands of uncompromising Republicans.  I can no longer ally myself politically with a politician who extended The Patriot Act and stands prepared to sign the NDAA into law (which allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens).  Nor can I endorse a politician that actively attacks medical marijuana dispensaries after campaigning on the promise that these facilities and the terminally ill patients that depend upon them would be left alone by his administration.

In closing, I’d like to offer a few ideas for your fundraising efforts that might put your efforts into a better light with your suffering voter base.  Instead of running a $3 lottery for a chance to have dinner with the president, perhaps you could run a $3 lottery for a chance to have a voter’s electricity bill paid up to date.  Or perhaps free groceries for a month.  I’m sure both of these suggestions would be comparable in price to a few plates of food at one of those fancy dinners in Washington, so it’s not like you ‘d be losing any of that precious campaign money.

Or even better yet, how about a lottery for a salaried job with a fully paid benefits package!  I know a ton of people that would cough up way more than $3 for an opportunity like that.

The point is, we’re suffering here.  The American people are seriously suffering and your offer for a chance to eat cake with the King is a slap in the face of our hardships.  Instead of raising money to buy commercial time, the Obama administration should have been keeping his campaign promises and defending us from Republican attacks on our personal liberties, health, and financial wellbeing.

Win votes with results.  Win votes by keeping your promises.  Win votes by actively going to bat for the little man.  Win votes by not labeling us all as possible future terror suspects that deserve nothing better than indefinite detention.  Do that, and I will vote for Obama, otherwise I’ll be voting for Rocky with the Justice Party.  You’ve got until next November to make it happen.  Good luck.