| Boston.com is reporting that President Obama will come to Boston on Monday, June 25th to take part in 3 campaign fundraising events.
Obama will meet first with a group of 25 big money supporters who each volunteered $40,000 to meet the President. Obama then moves to Symphony hall where 1,800 people have ponied up $250 each to get a glimpse of the President. Then, in a final campaign event he meets with 100 more big money donors for a dinner event in which each participant contributes $17,900 at a private home. When all is said and done the President should walk away with a total of $3,240,000.00 in cash. Not bad for a single campaign swing thru a liberal stronghold.
Now, as you could imagine, NONE of that $3,240,000 goes to covering the cost of transporting the President and his staff to the event. Nope! It will be covered by the taxpayers. Why, you ask. Well he is also going to swing up to Durham, NH where he will speak to a crowd at Oyster River High School. Tickets are free for this event, but you must pick them up at an Obama campaign office.
Here is the interesing thing - Nobody knows what Obama is going to speak about at the High School!
Campaign officials in New Hampshire announced Thursday the president will deliver remarks inside the Oyster River High School gymnasium on Monday afternoon.
Obama's New Hampshire campaign team hasn't released information about the subject of the president's upcoming speech in Durham.
Even the website we are directed to has no details of his speech. www.obamanh.com simply says come meet the President.
So, by wrapping his campaign visits around a 'nondescript' public speech he can write off all the expenses to his day job, and not use a penny of the more than $3 million he raises during the day.
Tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 9 a.m. today at Obama's campaign offices in Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter, Concord, Conway, Keene, Laconia, Lebanon, Manchester and Nashua.
Here is an important ethical question, and why I ask if the HS visit is legal. Is it right to force people to pick up tickets to see the POTUS at a campaign office, if the POTUS is going to write off the expense as a public speech? Presumably this visit to the HS is an open speech and therefore he can write off the expense to the taxpayers, but can he still call it an open speech if tickets have to be gotten from a campaign office? I find that a bit intimidating, don't you?
I hope he figures out something to say between now and when he arrives for he HS speaking event. It will be disappointing to watch the big dummy stand there and say 'um, ah, um, let me be clear, at my direction, um, ah, um' for a half hour. |
