Times are tough and getting significantly tougher, so it’s a challenge for the Obama campaign to come up with some fundraising stunts that will attract any attention in these desperate, weird times. He could put his dong on Twitter, we suppose, but that’s not exactly the right kind of attention. What the Barack Obama campaign machine needs is some kind of aspirational message, perhaps something along the lines of “Hope” and “Change” but without the actual emotion of Hope or the prospect of actual Change. Oh, we know! Have a contest, and the winner gets a plate of food.
This is the email currently going out to tens of millions of voters who foolishly signed up for Obama ’08 campaign updates and are now assaulted by a never-ending, unstoppable, un-unsubscribeable torrent of spam:
Truck –
I’ve worked for President Obama for almost five years — but I’ve never actually sat down for dinner with him.
That’s why I’m excited about (and maybe a little jealous of) the opportunity you have to join the President for dinner. He’s going to sit down and swap stories over a meal with four supporters, and you could be one of them.
You should really give this a shot. Donate $10 or more today to be automatically entered for the chance to sit down for dinner with the President.
On the one hand, $10 would actually buy a plate of food without having to sit down with goddamned Obama. On the other hand, you could simply steal a credit card, “donate” to Obama, and long after the bogus charge is canceled you will still have a shot of getting a plate of food. And maybe while Obama is telling lies in the other direction, you can steal his diamond Rolex that he picked out of a carton of diamond Rolexes sent to him each day by Goldman Sachs.
{ 130 comments }
Who pays for the airfare to DC? I'll go only if he sends Air Force One.
What are you? Some kind of upscale callgirl? You can't make such demands.
Mmm, food, I remember when I could afford that.
Ramen noodles. I may soon be forced into buying the generic 12 for a dollar ones now, though.
No solids? But I love solids!
Democracy at its best: meals by lottery.
For dessert you get a bowl of Ben & Jerry's "Yes, Pecan!" ice cream.
Oh. Barb.
ftw
Is that the one where it has the awesome Inaugural pic of Obama on the front but when you open it up it's just Rocky Road?
Soon to be "The Grape Depression". (sold in pints and quarts)
And served only in double dips.
You know, if I worked in marketing for Ben & Jerry's I would totally have a check in the mail to you right now for that.
Sure won't be humble pie. Or crow.
Hmm, I can't commit until I see a menu. There better not be ribs on it though or Eric Bolling might get the Klan hood out again.
$10? Bet it's Hobo Beans.
My email asks for $75!!! Does this mean I get a better dinner? I am not sending in the money -I already contributed and got my T-shirt(a sure thing!)
I'll wait for the beer/picnic table Awkward Moment, thanks.
Who's Truck? One of Palin's kids?
Guess who's coming to Dinner? (Im bored at work sorry)
"Dear Truck"…. Damn. I should start using "Truck Nutz" as my name on email lists, also, too…
BTW, the pitch suggests $350.
Oh, I'm sure all the $10 donors totally do not go into a separate drawing pool than the donors with many, many, many more zeros at the end of their donation…
I just checked, and got the $3 pitch myself; maybe they know about my current medical bills and lack of insurance, which wouldn't have been an issue if he hadn't wussed out on healthcare reform.
wooooooo-I got asked for $75 and thought that was a lot.
The new Democratic mantra:
A rug on the floor
A painting on the wall
A chicken in a pot and a plate of food.
This should make everyone happy.
As long as the rug really ties the room together.
"along the lines of 'Hope' and 'Change'"
Bob Hope is long dead, and I have 75 cents to my name. Suck-cess!
Probably a sensibly-small plate of good-for-you food. I'd go five dollars, but ten is a stretch.
Dinner to consist of bootstraps and enthusiasm gap.
Are they at least Halal?
Of course! That's Kenyan, right?
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
Stand still won't you!
No, no, no. If you don't beat your meat, you can't have any pussy! How can you have any pussy if you don't beat your meat?
As I posted yesterday, it's tweet. Tweet your meat.
If the FLOTUS coming up with the menu I'm gonna have to pass.
"We had a great Easter egg roll. I gave out candy to the kids she snatched it from their hands"
Just a bit cynical aren't we Wonkette Jr.? After all, Barry is trying to serve up a little vittles to the starving masses. I think at least four lucky people will get to have dinner with him and tell him what a crap hellhole this country has become….or maybe not. I was told (in my letter) it was $75. Someone is getting the fucking happy meal version….bastards!
I think the suggested donation is based on your past donations. For instance, my email suggested $3.00 (true!). That's what you get when you donate a bus token and some cents-off coupons for Pringles to the Obama campaign.
Will it be a plate of cotton candy: you think you have a mouthful but when you bite down there's not much there?
Will the roast chicken we eat be free-range? Show me its birth certificate.
I hope Fuzzy Zoeller wins, I can just see his post-dinner presser:
"That little boy is presidentin' well and he's pollin' well. He's doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here. You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not serve fried chicken next year. Got it. …or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve."
Maybe too obscure.
Massa Fuzzy always the prankster.
Stanley: Collard.
Michael: What?
Stanley: They're called "collard" greens.
Michael: No, no. That's offensive. They're not called "collard" people.
Oh, you're gonna get fed something all right…
Could be worse, if it was dinner with David Koch, you'd be the main course cause all those fuckballs eat are Big Macs, heroin and human blood.
NJ residents only.
New Jerseeeeey! >:O
Hey, how else is he going to raise the $2 billion dollars this country so desperately needs to be spent on an election campaign?
Also, the fine print states that any attempt to start a food fight will get you an extended stay in a cage in Gitmo.
That'll be the new stimulus, campaign spending! Once the general election starts the GOP will really revitalize the racist sign and bumper sticker industries.
Our thriving non-union racist sign and bumper sticker industries. The backbone of America.
Except it's still perfectly legal for Joe Biden to wander in, spray mashed potatoes from his mouth, and proclaim "I'm a zit! Get it?"
I'd spend $125 to make a website about the turtle that stole Joe Biden's brain.
How much can I get on eBay for that plate of food?
So, we'll have to sell out letters from the POTUS consoling us on being poors, to afford a 10 dollah dinner with the POTUS? Very Ponzi.
That's actually the compromise funding plan for Medicare.
You're on a roll, Ms. Freak.. Either that head cold got vaporized with mind-over-mutter, or T.S. Eliot was right: the writing flows better while enduring a fever.
What if I just want to sit in the backyard on a beautiful summer day and down a case of PBR with Michelle, Joe and Bo while Hopey works in the oval office on stuff like the economy and ending wars? How much does that cost?
The deluxe package, eh?
You don't have that kind of scratch.
If I live under the standard flight plan for the White House helicopters (and I do), does that mean Barry will heave a Double Whopper with Cheese and a pack of smokes at me on my deck if I win? Or will FLOTUS drop an arugula IED?
Decisions, decisions.
How about I take the $10 and grill some food for me and my friends? Or make some sammiches (about 25 or so) and give 'em to the soup kitchen down the street?
Aw, fuck it… Bushmills here I come! It's mah birfday tomorrow!! I'm gonna celebrate by drinkin and drivin' my lawnmower around in circles shootin' my bow in the air!!
May your day include hippopotami, Sam the Eagle's family, and two female sheep.
Hippo, birdies, two ewes.
Stop giving me flashback's of my mother's penchant for Boynton greeting cards!
Bless your fuzzy little heart!
I was thinking much the same thing: I'm probably a much better cook than Obama. If everyone threw a $10 at me I could definitely manage a nice pork chop with raspberry sauce, and I promise not to ask for votes.
That's quite a brilliant campaign strategy. Newt Gingrich should co-opt it:
"Donate Money and I Won't Run for Office!"
He could serve those watermelons he's growing on the lawn of the White House for desert! Color me in!
Don't need to have dinner with Obummer. Been fed enough of his shit.
Depends on the menu, if Michele is going to fill it with healthy vegetables and stuff I am sure most Americans are not going to show up. However, If you are going to deep fry some corn syrup they will show up like they were headed to a Glenn Beck rally; with Rascals and Barbque sauce.
Guess who's coming to dinner? Well, it ain't Sidney Poitier.
The "winner" will magically be from the Chamber of Commerce, and maybe the chairman of a company that rhymes with "Hell's Cargo." Maybe we can give him the chair, man.
Sign me up for Joe Biden. That dinner will be sure to have awkward moments but plenty of laughs.
Me too. It would probably be steaks on the grill and split a 18 box of beers sitting at the picnic table.
The message sent to my e-mail just said I had to donate five dollars.
Clearly I'm Barry's favoritest.
Don't waste time putting food on your family. Try putting it on the table.
"My Dinner with Barack"
Hope it ain't as boring as that movie with Andre.
Wait — Obama's campaign has aspirated? That explains a lot.
I suppose they may serve pretzels as finger food before the main service.
If it was good enough for Jimi, it's good enough for y'all.
Don't forget Cass Elliott…
♫ and no one is getting fat, except for Goldman Sachs ♫
Times are hard – you'll be filling in while the White House staff gets the night off. So be prepared to do some cooking, waiting, and cleaning. And if you're really lucky, Barry might notice you're there.
I call bullshit. Honey, when you see the horror that the GOP will be offering as an alternative, you'll be crawling on your hands and knees to your polling place and whimpering with gratitude that you can still vote for Obama.
Nah. Some people really, truly believe there is no difference, just like there was no difference between Al Gore and W. or the teabagger congress now and the Dem Congress of 09.
The rest of us hold our nose and vote for the *far* lesser of 2 evils and hope there are enough of us to overcome. Mostly because people will never see an uber conservative get elected and come to the conclusion they need to be more liberal to win.
The only way we'll get out from under the Kochocracy is to spark a big one and lay back for a while. Give them free rein, let things go into the Ultimate Shitter, '29-style, and wait for the booboisie to say "OK, we get it now."
Get it started, so we can get it over with.
No. I heard that shit in 2000. No matter how bad it gets under facism, people will never think that Hitler was the wrong guy to vote in. Sooooo…no.
HOPEFULLY this is what the angry libruls do. Our own snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is endless.
Yes, but once you actually sit down for dinner with Obama, the FBI arrests you for being some kind of peace-activist hippie. Don't fall for it!
Point painfully taken.
Weird, I was just thinking about a plate of shrimp. Can there be any explanation?
Barry needs to stop beleaguering us with all this begging. He can just hit up his Cabinet members for some spare change. With all of those former Gold man Sachs
employeesexecutives, he can pocket at least a billion. And re-election for him means job security for them; it's a win-win.Wait! It was suggested I donate $125.00. I guess not all doners are equal — maybe some doners are more equal than others. Just like in that funny story about farm animals!
yeah…kind of my thoughts
I'd rather dine with 2008 Barry than 2011 version.
If I win, I'll show up doing my best "Arthur" impression. (The movie, not the PBS cartoon.)
Kudos to your long memory.
Bachman/Romney 2012?
Something tells me, for some of you, the bloom has ever-so-faintly faded from the rose.
with a side of unicorn testicles
I have a feeling if you eat any of that rich White House food, you're gonna have a real Cash for Plunkers on your hands.
Fox News will probably use some old stock Raymond Scott music in the background when they report this.
__Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals__
If you're one of the 25 million unemployed, it may be the only square meal you get all week.
We need to all donate pool our tickets and if one of us win we send Riley.
What IZ 4 din din?
If toonah fish, Skinny Kitten IZ interested…
No pony?
My email said "CEASE AND DESIST"
As a Sanctimonious Purist-Progressive, I am not sure I could eat in the presence of Obama. Even if I could, I wouldn't be able to keep the food down.
I'll only donate if we get to go to Chuck E. Cheese and Obama uses his executive powers to allow me into the ball pit.
what, with the hatching snakes and other dangerous stuff(see, Snopes and ball pits)???
$10 for a chance to eat dinner is sorta like the lottery, though for $5 can I get dinner with Joe?
On the other hand, for $10k+ a plate, you are guaranteed a dinner with the President. Of course, you need to fork out the big bucks for a one-on-one chance. It's a cost-benefit analysis.
If I go, I'll have to get his autograph so I can sell it to pay the taxes on what the package is worth.
As BadAss Kitty pointed out, you can enter for free. There goes Barry NOBAMA with the sochulism and welfare state again!
Long as we can brew up a batch of absynthe with that wormwood, we're good.
Boehner's invited?
I'll have the winnies and hotdog buns, some cedar cheese, instat potatoes, maybe a white casul and some cakes we like, pls.
oh oh oh oh oh SUCH a good memory. i had forgetten this little beauty.
upon rereading, i wonder was this a shopping list or a military requisition?
Barack: I'd gladly take your money for a dream deferred today.
If Wonkette Jr.'s first name is truck, then the last name must be "asaurus."
yeah, this is a dinner i would like to attend. four random angry progressives and the president. for five minutes.
now, if someone offered me a dinner with biden or blago, that i would do.
Oh wait, the plan's been changed. Now if you send $10 to Obama, he'll pass it along to a hedge fund manager to help pay for his next dinner. Whatever gave you the idea that Obama promised a "free dinner for you" in the first place?
Nader/LaRouche 2012!
I sense a new vulnerability on the part of Obama. Just yesterday, on MSNBC, Tweety's show, they were MOCKING Obama for his endless small donation fundraising on line, at the same time that he pulls in millions from Wall St. donors and Hollywood. Watch this new guy Huntsman, who is giving voice to the extreme disgust with wasting time/money/lives in Afghanistan.
What new guy- Huntsman has been around-and he is just another GOP clone
I'm pretty sure Barry doesn't want to kiss your ass or your anything else.
If I get drunk, wil the secret service drive me back to the hotel?
It's a clever trick. There's no actual food…just a place setting. And you have to bring your own napkin.
Is there a gluten-free option?
"Obama Campaign’s New Contest: You Could Win a Plate of Food"- To go with that bag of Lightly Salted Dicks we have in Congress.
Oh no, Wonkette Jr. has bad feelings for Obama.
Thanks for the replies.
I've never voted for a Republican in my life. That's why I won't vote for Obama in 2012.
Check the promises Obama made, and what he's done since taking office.
Republicans fear their base. Democrats despise theirs.
That would be because right after elections, the Democrats get down to the hard business of selling out the interests of the people who just voted for them for cold corporate cash.
If you settle for happy speeches and "the Republicans would be worse", then that's all you'll ever get.
J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Exxon, and G.E. don't settle for speeches, they want the cash. And they get it.
P.S. Kick me down, and I will kick you too. Isn't that what we're supposed to do?
~
I'd donate $10, but I already donated $10 to a wealthy Kenyan prince who will give me a piece of treasure for helping him gain access to said treasure who solicited me, this morning, via email.
Having three meals in one day?
The Recessions is OVAAAAAAAAAAH!
I got this in my email a few weeks ago, and that night I had a crazy ass dream.
I dreamt that I won and was flown to Washington DC to have dinner with the President. I asked what I should wear, and they told me casual, because they wanted it to look good for the press. So the President, myself, and three other people sat down to eat. We had fish. The other people were effusive in their praise, talking about how much they loved him, and I kept saying, "Well, what about the economy? What about jobs? What about anything that you actually campaigned on?". He made some excuses, but they weren't satisfying.
Anyway, after dinner I stepped outside for a smoke (because apparently you can smoke at the White House), and I hear the door open behind me. It's the President. He comes out, and asks if he can bum one. I don't think you can legally turn the President of the United States down if he asks to bum a smoke, so I gave him one. We light up, and he starts talking.
He tells me that he genuinely believed that he could change things in Washington when he was elected. That everything I talked about at dinner, he was going to do.
Then he tells me about how he didn't expect GOP opposition to be so intense and borderline crazy. How it didn't matter how much he gave up, they just wanted him to not win.
He didn't expect the Senate to basically shut down because of Mitch McConnell. He didn't expect the Tea Party and their brand of crazy.
He tells me he didn't really know how broken Washington was until now.
Then he puts his hand on my shoulder, sighs, then puts out his cigarette and walks inside.
Crazy dream, right?
Comments on this entry are closed.