By Cisco Cotto
Is the Obama campaign really this cash-strapped? We know his supposedly legendary fundraising operation is hurting. Heck, if the New York Times is willing to admit it’s hit a rough patch things must really be bad, but is it so tight that he can’t spare a few bucks worth of stickers and signs for some little girls?
Michelle Walsh is a Girl Scout leader in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. Her 2nd grade girls work hard at selling cookies and building crafts. But Walsh sometimes tries to go a step further. She wants to teach the girls about civics, specifically this Presidential race. Walsh decided a way to get the girls really excited about the campaigns would be to give them trinkets from each of the candidates. So she called John McCain’s campaign which immediately sent over a box filled with stickers and signs. Then she called the Obama campaign and it left her scratching her head.
The Chicago Tribune reports the Obama camp took Walsh’s call and then directed her to the campaign website where she could buy all the trinkets she wanted. Bumper stickers for $3 a piece. Yard signs run $8. That was a bit steep for the budget of a Girl Scout troop.
Walsh figured there must have been some mistake so she called the Obama campaign office again. She told the woman on the line about John McCain’s generosity and this time she was placed on hold. When the woman came back to the phone she apologized, but said they weren’t going to be able to help. The staffer said the Obama campaign needs every penny it can get. So she directed Walsh to another spot on Obama’s website where she could print out pages that the girls could color. Nice.
Instead, Walsh called the newspaper, which got on the phone with the Obama camp and got a much different answer. Something about a phone call from a member of the media enabled Team Obama to find a few extra bucks in the campaign chest to afford a box of goodies for the girls. Touching.
Mistakes can happen in any local campaign office. Surely decisions made by a low-level staffer may not represent what the candidate would do if he or she were asked. But with Obama’s campaign significantly hurting in polls of women voters this perpetuates the narrative that he is dismissive of women. Hillary was “likeable enough.” Obama’s daughters shouldn’t “be punished with a baby” if they get pregnant before marriage. Sarah Palin is nothing more than a“former mayor of a town of 9,000”and a “moose shooter.” Regardless of what you think of the “lipstick on a pig” episode, it allowed the McCain campaign to put Obama on defense with charges of sexism. Now Obama doesn’t think enough of the Girl Scouts to spare some stickers and signs? That’s not how you get women back on your side.