{"id":10090,"date":"2007-03-02T14:45:11","date_gmt":"2007-03-02T19:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10090.html"},"modified":"2007-03-02T14:45:11","modified_gmt":"2007-03-02T19:45:11","slug":"obama-asks-working-class-clevelanders-for-five-bucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/obama-asks-working-class-clevelanders-for-five-bucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama asks working-class Clevelanders for five bucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Journal’s Hotline blog posted<\/a> a YouTube clip of [tag]Barack Obama[\/tag] today that, at first blush, might appear embarrassing for the senator. Indeed, the blog referred to it as “oppo,” suggesting that it could be damaging. Thinking it through, however, the Hotline may not appreciate the larger dynamic here.<\/p>\n

In the video, Obama is shown speaking in what is described as “a fairly impoverished Cleveland.” Obama tells his audience that he wants “everybody here to pony up five dollars, ten dollars for this campaign. I don’t care how poor you are, you’ve got five dollars.”<\/p>\n

I realize what the Hotline blog is thinking. Candidates are supposed to appeal for donations to people how have plenty of disposable income. No one asks low-income, working-class families to contribute to a political campaign. But here’s a follow-up question: why not?<\/p>\n

Obama worked in community organizing in some “fairly impoverished” parts of Chicago and I suspect he knows a thing or two about how to appeal to inner-city families. In Hotline’s comments, Matt Singer explained<\/a>, “One of the fundamental premises of community and low-income organizing is that people still need to buy in.”<\/p>\n

Exactly. Obama wasn’t out there asking folks to stop paying the rent so they can donate to his campaign; he was asking five dollars. Why? Because he wants them to be vested in the endeavor. He wants them to have some sense of ownership in the process.<\/p>\n

Because, at some point down the road, Obama might be able to say, “I’m beholden to my campaign contributors — who include low-income, working-class families in impoverished areas of Cleveland.” It’s exactly why all the major Dem candidates — [tag]Clinton[\/tag], [tag]Edwards[\/tag], Richardson Dodd — have done outreach to the netroots, because the more they raise in smaller donations, the fewer exclusive fundraisers they’ll have to do.
\n
\nDavid Sirota had a good item<\/a> on this today.<\/p>\n

Let’s be clear – big donors and philanthropists will always play a role in politics – and some of them play an extremely constructive role (personal example: the Progressive States Network could never have gotten off the ground without generous support from some visionary philanthropists). But the idea that it’s somehow scandalous for candidates or organizations to ask regular working stiffs to ALSO financially buy into a movement is a false construct designed to rationalize plutocracy.<\/p>\n

Though Obama certainly has his share of Big Money interests funneling money to his operation, I’m thrilled to see that he’s drawing on his community organizing roots to – at least in public appeals – try to bring working people into the part of presidential campaigns too often left exclusively to the fat cats. That folks in the Beltway see this as “controversial” is only a commentary on how many in the nation’s capital truly believe politics should be the exclusive gated community of the rich and famous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given this, National Journal may have inadvertently done Obama a favor by highlighting a grass-roots oriented approach to campaign fundraising. Presidential candidates who rely exclusively on exclusive, high-donor fundraising galas are more likely to lose touch. Presidential candidates who rely exclusively on small-dollar contributions are more likely to lose campaigns.<\/p>\n

What’s wrong with trying both?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Journal’s Hotline blog posted a YouTube clip of [tag]Barack Obama[\/tag] today that, at first blush, might appear embarrassing for the senator. Indeed, the blog referred to it as “oppo,” suggesting that it could be damaging. Thinking it through, however, the Hotline may not appreciate the larger dynamic here. In the video, Obama is shown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}