Obama's Fire Sale

Six weeks before the election, President Obama couldn’t fill the ballroom at the Roosevelt Hotel, despite cheap tickets on offer. And then he was met by hecklers.

Who would have thought that six weeks before a cliffhanger election, President Obama would have to reach down to the D list to fill a room to listen to him? Most of us low rollers arrived early to see President Obama up close and personal. Our tickets for the general reception at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York were only $100. Some thought the email invitation was a joke. Some bought tickets for $50 from their desperate Democratic committeeman. Some bought the same day.

[snip]

Only after I received four email invitations and two personal calls imploring me to come did I call Speaker Pelosi’s office to check the admission price.

“You mean, to be in the room with the President of the United States is now on fire sale for $100?”

”Yup.”

“How long do we get?”

“Half hour.”

“How many $100 givers have rsvp’d?”

“Mmmm 250.”

“Do we need to line up early to get in?”

“That’s not necessary. Everybody  will get in.”

And everybody did—450 people in a room that holds 650.  Even Obama’s fire sale didn’t sell out.

[SNIP]

Don't ask, don't tell!” hollered the female heckler.

“The incomes of middle-class families –“

“Don't ask, don't tell!”

“…fell by almost 5 percent—“

“Don't ask, don't tell!”

“…fell by almost 5 percent –“

Our crowd tried to push the hecklers back.

“No, no, it's all right,” said the president, curbing the fury in the room. “We don't have to—it's OK.  You don't need to yell,” he reasoned with them. “Listen, my most urgent task as president was to prevent a second Depression.” (Applause.) “We've been through war and Depression and struggles for equal rights and civil rights. In each instance, we have made progress. Progress took time. Progress took sacrifice…”

There it was, the forgotten word: Sacrifice. That was the mantra of the Greatest Generation, buried under tens of thousands of American GIs whose families sacrificed their greatest treasure to fight for our ideals. The Bush mantra was Shop.

“Now, 19 months later…people are frustrated with the pace of change—and so am I,” the president confessed. “But I'm also here to tell you this: We cannot lose heart. We cannot give up.” (Applause.).

“These folks [Republicans] spent a decade driving our economy into a ditch. And so me and Nancy [Pelosi] and Bob [Menendez] and Chris [Van Holland], we all put on our boots and we went down into the ditch. It was muddy. It was hot. We're sweating. There are bugs. We're down there and we're pushing on this car. We're slippin’ and slidin,’ but we know we've got to get it up there.”

The crowd identified. We've been slippin' and slidin', too

“And the Republicans are standing on level ground and they're watching us. They're sipping on a Slurpee”  (laughter) “and they're saying, “You know, you're not pushing hard enough” …And every once in a while, we'd look up to them and say, “Do you guys want to help?” They said, “No, no—no, we can't.”

Laughter built.

“And so finally, finally we get that car out of the ditch. Now, it's a little banged up… It needs a tune-up." (Laughter.) "It's not moving as fast as we wanted, but it's on level ground and we're ready to move forward. And suddenly we get a tap on the shoulder and we look back, and it's the Republicans.”(Laughter.) “They said, 'Excuse me, we want the keys back.' ”

Delicious anticipation. “You can't have the keys back. You don't know how to drive!” (Wild applause.)

Later that night, another crowd had shelled out $15,000 to sit for dinner with the president.  Think that’s a lot?  It’s a 50 percent markdown from a recent invitation to dinner with the president at the home of Linda Douglass and John Phillips, costing $30,000.

[snip]

The Clintons are still gracious to their supporters from 1992. Bill often takes whole delegations on his overseas speaking trips, including some former supporters. When the Hillary and Obama presidential campaigns merged in July 2008, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee were anxious to know how the Clintons held most of their loyal contributors from ’92 to 2008. The Clinton people divulged the secret of long-term loyalty—feed their brains as well as their egos, continually. It now appears the Clintons’ formula has been steadily ignored by the Obama team.

[snip]

And so the question is, how many Obama fire sales does it take to raise another record-shattering $770 million for 2012?