Opinion: New Obama money appeal warns that opposition to him ‘is a threat to our democracy’
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Not sure if anyone’s keeping current records of political fundraising by politicians not on any ballot. But President Obama is back at it today.
He’s sent another e-mail missive to his millions of supporters and others plaintively labeled, ‘Please, chip in what you can.’
The guy who got the Oval Office for only $750 million would settle for just $3 this time if that’s all you’ve got, though more would be better, of course. Because he’s got some unidentified donors who will match your $3. In the last few weeks Obama has made the same plea. And he’s had his wife do that. And also Joe Biden, who recently announced he’d be on the 2012 Democratic ticket again because no one had asked.
The president’s message today, which is signed ‘Barack’ because we’re all close friends in....
...this struggle for change, carries a note of urgency. Not because it’s still two years until the next time Obama is on a ballot. Or because Organizing for America needs to expand its multimillion-name e-mail files even more. Although it does. It’s urgent because there are barely seven days left until the Nov. 2 midterm whose outcomes (‘Dems lose House, barely keep Senate’) will be widely interpreted as a referendum on Obama’s aloof, liberal style and policies.
But there’s also a harsher note in this message, a rhetorical escalation.
With Halloween approaching, the Democrat conjures those evil ‘special interests’ again, not the bankers that gave so generously to his 2008 campaign or the British oil company whose lobbyist put up Obama’s chief of staff in a rent-free apartment for years and not the public employee union that’s spending way more millions than any other group in this campaign to fight for more government jobs.
No, Obama presumably means the special interests working for the shadowy, sinister Republicans whose minuscule congressional minorities these last four years have so clearly confounded even the leaderly legislative likes of Harry Reid and even Nancy Pelosi.
‘This kind of politics isn’t just a threat to Democrats,’ the 44th president of the United States warns a frightened nation about his political opposition. ‘It’s a threat to our democracy.’
How’s that for bipartisanship?
You know how politicians seeking money tell us that every election is the most important in their lifetime, probably yours too and, who knows, maybe even the entire known universe? Well, JB just did it again up in New York.
Because of the pressing daily duties of the vice presidency and Obama’s need for minute-to-minute consultation with him, Biden has only been able to do more than 100 political events in recent weeks. This is what he said today about next Tuesday’s voting:
‘It’s more important than the one that got Barack and me elected. It literally is. Because there at least we would have continued to drift another four years, which would be bad. Now at least we’ve stopped the drift and are starting to head in the right direction.’
Biden re-guaranteed that Democrats would keep control of the House and Senate. His clearly stated concern is that an expansive government like the Obama-Biden administration would be crippled by anything less. Never one for hyperbole, Biden stated flatly:
“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive.’
So, for instance, according to history Prof. Biden, without government help, there obviously would have been no national television enabling President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to address the nation about the Depression years before he took office.
And don’t forget that $3 or you might be considered part of the opposition.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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