Sorry, but… (UPDATE: on the other hand — WOW – $117k+ raised)

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… I just can’t get excited about Michelle Obama’s visit. It’s why I haven’t mentioned it. I swear I’m not posing, I just don’t really do/care-about the celebrity thing. I’m sure she’s a very nice person.

But here’s an open thread for anyone who wants to talk about it, and a picture snagged from Facebook of the Shuminator (& daughter Olivia) smiling with the honored guest.

UPDATE: Holy crap. Apparently there were 928 people in attendance, and the event pulled in a whopping (for Vermont) $117,350. Jeebus. That’s a lot of people, most of whom paid out just $50 or $100, with some higher contributions going as high as $5000 (none of this is counting the more exclusive ECHO event).

UPDATE 2 What’s odd – and covered over at blurt – was the lack of media access to the event, or, I should say, the inconsistent media access. It would make more sense if they just let no media in (it’d be gross, but it would make sense), but in this case, they just let a teensy bit of the media in? Why?

Strange moves from a campaign that, 3 years ago, was legendary for it’s discipline and security. Now? They keep most, but not all of the media out (just enough to keep everything in the open (AND piss off most of the reporters at the same time), while the list of participants’ names and contributions is in seemingly pretty widespread circulation. Methinks some priorities are askew.

Ah, well. Campaigns are silly things. If they weren’t, they’d be markedly less entertaining.

16 thoughts on “Sorry, but… (UPDATE: on the other hand — WOW – $117k+ raised)”

  2. I was just about to post a diary. I went at the instigation of friends I see only a few times a year.

    The thing actually went off on time. Security was no worse than an airport’s and we didn’t have to take off our shoes.

    I left at home the sign I’d planned:

    For Pres. O:

    Evolve FASTER!

    Marriage EQUALITY

    NOW!

    Also left at home the sign I wish I’d made:

    Your Marriage

    Is Equal ~

    Why Isn’t Mine?

    Repeal DOMA Now!

    Just didn’t have the energy to do the sign thing — couldn’t get mad enough at a president of my party who seems well-intentioned, although about as tough in negotiations as overcooked spaghetti.

    Among the many Vermont “firsts” cited by various speakers, not one mentioned Vermont as the first civil union state.

    A couple of interesting things:

    • The lonely, only protestor was a guy from codepink, holding a half-bedsheet (pink, of course) with black, glued-on letters reading: Burlington Welcomes Wife of Mass Murderer … Really    codepink. He apparently was asked to leave, but insisted on his First Amendment right to stay.

    • Among the occasionally almost incoherently ecstatic welcoming speeches was one by the current Gov., Peter Shumlin, who touted how Vermont is fully in support of healthcare reform, just like President Obama, and how Vermonters understand — just like President Obama — the need to “tax the rich before cutting programs and services to the most vulnerable among us” (a close paraphrase). [Yup, he really took credit for that.]

    The First Lady’s speech was as expected. She started with the salute to soldiers and their families, then moved to mostly rosy and inspiring reminiscences of the 2007-8 campaign, added the list of Obama accomplishments, followed up with the list of goals yet to accomplish, and finished with the call to action for the campaign.

    The Free Press preview said 900 tickets were sold for this event. Just a month ago I gave a speech in a convention hotel ballroom of 962 people. This crowd did not look like 900 people, imho. I’m sure it was a great success for fundraising.

    There’s the nutshell version: two and a half hours (not counting travel time) in a dozen paragraphs.

    NanuqFC

    [T]he rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights – both from unjust laws and violent acts. ~ US President Barack Obama

  3.      I think Michelle’s role model potential for all girls and women is enormous.  The First Lady was a great student, had (and hopefully will have again) a highly successful career as a lawyer.  She has, by all indications, done a great job bringing up her girls in a crazy fishbowl, and role models a healthy marital relationship with the President.  Michelle Obama is a positive force in a country where the political women getting most of the press these days are a joke.  The First Lady has brains, class and gosh darn it, all reasonable people like her.  

         There is still a place, old fashioned as it may seem, for the First Lady to help rally the Troops in uniform, and the rest of us too.  My daughters, 7 and 10 adore her, and would have loved to see her, but were at Girl Scout Camp with

    a bunch of other wonderful women on Thursday.

        So, cheers to you, Michelle Obama! Your positive spirit is helping us get through these very trying times.

  4. But I’m not with you on this one.

    I’ve always been scornful of the First Lady cult, but I really like her.

  5. Whatever one can say about Michelle Obama to be where she is now is an extraordinary miracle, given this country’s past and present racial troubles.  And as was said in an earlier post here, she handles herself so well, much better thank any of the women now making headlines on the gop ticket that seem more like bigoted bitches than anything else.  Michelle could teach us some things.   I agree with the posts about her husband giving in to the gop half the time, but I hope he gets another four.  Maybe it will be different because he does not have to raise money for another prez run.  Maybe.  

  6. it’s insane in a democracy, two-hundred years post-monarchy, that we care two pins about the spouse of our president.  Remember how everyone obsessed over Hilary’s hair?

  7. The contributing problem (no pun intended) is the fact that we focus on personalities rather than structures and methods.

    “Yay for Michelle!” “Damned disappointment Barack!” And so on.

    Of course he’s a disappointment. He raised, what, 64 million dollars to get where he is? That $64 mil was a manifestation of the filter that eliminates decent candidates. If he had opinions that would offend or alarm millionaires, billionaires, and the rentier class in general, he and Michelle would still be community activists in Chicago.

    The fact that they could raise over $100k from less than 1,000 people in one day is indicative of the class of people they serve. Ignore the speech. Watch the money.

    Again, I say, look up the PIRG study called “The Wealth Primary.” Whichever candidate spends the most money in a congressional primary wins, 9 times out of 10. 80% of that money comes in big chunks from millionaires and up. Those two facts fundamentally explain politics in the U.S.

    So ignore the FLOTUS, charming as she is. Mass murder makes money for millionaires, and so it will continue.

  8. What’s odd – and covered over at blurt – was the lack of media access to the event, or, I should say, the inconsistent media access. It would make more sense if they just let no media in (it’d be gross, but it would make sense), but in this case, they just let a teensy bit of the media in? Why?

    While I was there, I thought, gee, no media scrum blocking the view …

    A pool report is less than ideal from a free media point of view, but given how entitled the media members seem to feel, I understand why that might be a choice at a rock-star political event that wanted to emphasize the personal touch.

    At the few high-wattage political events I’ve attended, I have been pushed aside and crowded out by tv cameras and their operators, even on the single occasion when I was there with a print media credential. Local press was shoved back in favor of national media.

    NanuqFC

    No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, none ever will. ~ Thomas Jefferson

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