Tuesday, November 6, 2007

My email to Obama

COMMENT:

ARE THERE ANY PLANS FOR BARACK TO DO A GLOBAL (FUNDRAISING) TOUR?

I THINK THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY FOR MULTIPLE REASONS. AS THE ICON OF THE NEW AMERICA, BARACK HAS ENORMOUS (TO A CERTAIN EXTENT LATENT) SUPPORT ABROAD. HE IS AN AMERICAN WITH GLOBAL ROOTS, LIKE MILLIONS OF OTHER AMERICANS TODAY.

THIS WOULD BE AN UNPRECEDENTED MEDIA EVENT: An American presidential CANDIDATE doing a global "goodwill tour"...BARACK IN FRANKFURT, SIDNEY, TOKYO, JAKARTA...

Mainstream media is not sure how to treat Barack other than "superstar"...he is both "ethnic" and smart/powerful, which makes him impossible to put in a simple "box"... This move would mesh perfectly with how they know how to write about Obama, at the same time that it would re-energize the movement about how Obama is thinking globally (clearly, this must be weighted against people who may say he too celebrity-obsessed, why isn't he in iowa, etc.)

HOWEVER, even a whirlwind "goodwill" tour would bring major headlines, "buzz" and possibly millions of expat dollars. Has anyone in the campaign run an analysis?

As another young harvard grad with a black African father and white American mother, born in America, I identify with Barack in a very personal way. If there are any interesting ways to get involved in Boston please let me know...

I have to say, I am a die-hard Obama supporter; however, I went to the Boston rally and was HUGELY underimpressed. That crowd was ALL overeducated students and their older compatriots, largely from across the river in Cambridge. I have lived, worked and studied in Boston for 8 years (was at Harvard College before the Grad School of Design).

What was sickening: there was no evidence at that rally that all of Boston's typically UNDERREPRESENTED COMMUNITIES even exist: where were the Vietnamese, the Cape Verdeans, the Haitians, the Chinese-Americans, the Brazilians, the Jamaicans, the Dominicans, etc?

Instead what we got was an old white man and a young white woman talk about the Cape and the importance of New Hampshire.

No offense to whoever is behind the New England machine but that was SAD. That is NOT a new kind of politics. If there are political troops going into Boston, to talk to THESE communities about Obama, let me know. I will mobilize Harvard grad students.

best, Dk
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h1zWNdv_nrRgJJ8avtCe_86A1MSQD8SNSQPO1

so obama trails clinton and richardson in us territory fundraising, but...even if its media-skewed, i dig the global dimension of his fundraising--michelle going to london, now this...if i were his campaign manager i would do a world circuit. clearly he has global support, and the media coverage would be huge...obama does frankfurt, sidney, jakarta, tokyo, beijing, and i'm sure he could raise a mil or two...
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