The Gift of Obama

So since the election has ended, my passions have dwindled a bit. But through the process I wanted to really learn about the candidates. So I signed up for both Obama and McCain's campaign email newsletters from about July forward.

It was pretty cool to keep up on things and hear what each candidate was focussing on, and once the election was over I received a nice thank you note from John McCain's campaign (via email). I received an email of a different tone from the Obama campaign as well. More of a "rah rah", thanks and we'll do a good job sort of email. Very cool- even though I didn't vote for Obama.

But I never unsubscribed from either list... and since then, I've not received anything from McCain- which makes perfect sense. But I've received a handful of emails from the Obama campaign. About four were actually pretty cool- non-editorialized announcement of his staff, innauguration stuff. No big deal. But I've received no less than 3 emails asking me to donate more money for which I will receive in return- either a t-shirt, mug, or calendar. Seriously? And for the purpose of replenishing the DNC war chest? They want individuals who are most affected by our economy to shell out more money to buy some licensed merchandise?

I guess if you want a Billy the Kid Knife

or the Baby Princess Diana Doll

































then you can always go to the Franklin Mint. But Obama is now trying to angle into this market?

A Holiday mug (which looks sort of like a coffee mug) for $15

Or a calendar for $35





















Or a T Shirt for $30

Maybe I'm not part of that culture that needs to commemorate things like this. I have a few T-shirts from places I've worked, a set of fraternity letters, an Expos baseball jersey, a Star Tours coffee mug. And yeah i guess I paid for some of those things. But now as a business owner I have coffee mugs, notepads and pens with my company logo. But I don't go selling those things to my clients. That would sort of set a crappy image with them. Would I want to hit them up for "donations" to help my business out? Isn't the real end result of the Obama presidency supposed to be a better America with more prosperity for the little guy? So how does making them (ok, us) pay a large amount of money for these trinkets help accomplish that end result? Plus, isn't there a whole industry in these sort of "licensed" merchandise already? Is he trying to put them out of business as well?

Perhaps I'll wait til January 1st rolls around and the calendars will be half off at the mall kiosk.

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