Obama-rama

I've been meaning to actually front page some links to posts about Barack Obama at the Ohio Democratic Party fundraiser dinner. So, I will do that now, but first, something unrelated to the dinner, yet which gave me a chuckle just now. Obama is mentioned at the end of an article about Stephen Colbert giving a commencement address:

Last year's commencement speaker, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) had sent Colbert this welcoming message:

"Stephen, Congratulations on being asked to speak at the 2006 Knox College Commencement. This is an enormous honor and on behalf of the people of Illinois, I'd like to welcome you to our state. As you know, I was invited to speak at Knox after my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and subsequent election to the United States Senate. Your convention speech must also have gone really well to have been invited. It's weird that I didn't read about it somewhere."

The man knows how to do the dry wit thing, doesn't he? I know many of us have been disappointed with some of Barack Obama's statments and votes but nobody is all good or all bad. Well, few people, anyway. But I've always been firmly of the opinion that if we are going to be quick to give someone a hard time when we disapprove, we have to be at least as willing to say, "Ya done good!" when appropriate. With that in mind, I need to share some of the backstory related to last night's ODP dinner.

From Plunderbund:

So Russell notices Obama will be at the 2006 Ohio Democratic Party State Dinner and emails the ODP and asks about some tickets for bloggers to both cover the event and get energized for the '06 elections. ...
Jeremy is ODP's finance director and kindly referred the matter to Brian Rothenberg, Communications Director. I spoke with Brian a bit ago and he said they don't do comps because it is a fundraiser, or some such thing and that the usual press doesn't care to accept the dinner part. Well, that is the misconception. We are not the press. We are activists...on your side. So the message I got was: "You all are nothing special, buy a ticket". Some of us may be in a position to, some not. That is not the point. The point is the ODP had yet another opportunity to embrace us and they passed.

I think this is a mistake, but it doesn't surprise me. There seems to be a general disdain for blogs that don't originate from within the party structure. Which would they rather have? Our $150 or our efforts in blogging and activism? Sure, you run the risk that bloggers crash the party ala the Christmas Fiasco. However, you pretty much guarantee constant criticism by not reaching out in very simple ways and bringing the growing and active Ohio blogosphere into your fold.

For anyone who does not follow the Ohio blogs, there is bad blood between some in the ODP and the Ohio blogosphere. Tim Tagaris addressed that in this open letter to the ODP.

Anyway, it was very cool to read soon after the post about Rothenberg, a post at Buckeye State Blog entitled, Obama Gets It.

Just got word that Barrack Obama bought a table for bloggers at ODP's June dinner and will even spend a few minutes chatting with us. What a cool guy.

Can't exactly say "all's well that ends well" because there was still some heated discussion on the Ohio blogs regarding whether it was appropriate to ask for the tickets in the first place, and apparently Brian Rothenberg's nose was really out of joint. I never really had a horse in this race, as I didn't follow the whole thing all that closely, and never asked for a ticket myself. But I do think that was a classy move on the part of Obama.

Pho's Akron Pages has a lengthy write-up of Barack Obama's time at the blogger table. Also, you can check the LeftyBlogs Ohio feed to see more posts about the event.

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