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Barack Obama "Top Friends" placement
Current mood:  curious
Category: News and Politics
Hello to all of the Senator Obama friends that may have ventured here by way of the profile picture being put in the "official" top friends list.
Welcome to my personal page which is mostly made up of family and friends and some of the causes that I believe in and support.
I have to say that when I received the message from the Barrack page last week asking if they could have permission to put me on their top friends list, I was a little perplexed. Why that was is because in these days of political volunteerism and fund raising I've become a bit more cynical than in previous campaigns. I am probably a lot like many of you in that I had caught the "O" fever way back when he gave his speech at the Democratic convention. I am a registered Democrat and have pretty much voted along those lines for the majority of my voting life. Given the current administration, it's fairly obvious as to why. Shortly after that speech and ensuing election, I told many of my friends that were/are politically minded that we would have either a woman (Clinton) or an African American (Obama) as President in 2008. As you may have expected, it was pretty much dismissed as never going to happen. I guess it doesn't look so far-fetched these days now does it?
I am the type of person that will carefully evaluate the candidates and then make my decision about a week before the primaries as to whom I will vote for. I believe that it is our duty to carefully examine whom we give our vote to and not follow blindly like so many other sheeple in the world. I started donating to the Senator Obama campaign when he announced and have continuously up until recently. That is when I put my contributions on "temporary hold" and I'll give you the reason why shortly here.
For my personal possible choices currently are those that I believe are actually electable in the National election, Senator Obama, Senator Clinton and ex Vice President Gore. (if he jumps in the race)
Al Gore is making some very worthwhile changes to how the world looks at itself and the effects of "Global Warming." He also has experience in the White House and what appears to be a genuine concern for our country.
Senator Clinton is very well spoken, intelligent and brings 8 years of knowing what happens behind the scenes inside the White House. She has so far in the debates come across to me as very Presidential sounding.
Senator Obama is a very enthusiastic motivational speaker not unlike when I remember hearing JFK when I was younger. He is very idealistic and caught my attention with speaking about "everyone counts" and "listening to the grassroots" supporters.
I would have no problem at this point voting for any of those candidates in the National election. The edge up until May I gave to Obama and then that is when I stopped my recurring contributions to his campaign. The short answer would be to say it was because of the "MySpaceGate" issue, but it's much more complex than that. I believe that as a country, it is our rightful duty to challenge anything that we feel is unjust and try to have it rectified. If we challenged the current pResident when he set forth his plan of misinformation in the beginning, we may well have averted this illegal and immoral war that we are losing family and friends everyday for. I've had relatives in Iraq and friends are still there. It sucks to think that you'll get that phone call about him/her not being with us any longer and then you get angry thinking about why we are there in reality. I challenge that with letters to the administration, congress, senate and march in every Pro-Peace event I can get to. I was angry when 911 happened as I lost a friend in the WTC towers on that day; however the anger should have been directed to the proper person/place instead of using it as a tool for invading Iraq. For those that remember, we went from having world support like never before and the pResident took that to being currently one of the most hated countries in the world. That is sad and that is why I challenge what a person is all about when they ask for my vote!
I am prepared to resume my contributions to Senator Obama if I can indeed feel comfortable about his managing of his staff again in the future.
This brings me back to why I was perplexed about the message to be put in the top friends list on the "official" page. I have written many emails, messages and postage letters to the Senator that have gone unanswered or replied in kind with canned responses. I wonder what the purpose was for choosing my profile out of the 133,000+ available friends? Was it because I have asked hard questions about "MySpaceGate?" Was it just because I made a cool logo with Senator Obamas image included? These things have made me wonder what the real reason I was "randomly" chosen for the top friends list? Are those in charge of this part of his MySpace page looking at the content of those that they choose to add to the top friends?
The message that was sent to me requesting me to be on it said:
Hi, Papa 2 Girls! ..:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O />..:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O />
"Thanks for making this MySpace profile in support of Barack. We've been looking at your page, and we really appreciate the work you've put into it. So we'd like to put you in our top friends set on Barack's official MySpace."
Please reply with your email address so we can feature you.
You will be notified when your profile appears in our top friends.
Thanks again for all you do,
Jasett @ Obama HQ (6/29/07)
I guess time will tell on some of these questions as they said in the current message telling me that I was added:
Hi, Papa!
We just wanted to follow up and let you know that we've moved you to our top friends space. We do get a large quantity of requests to be in our top friends, so we can only leave people up for about a week.
Thanks for being a part of our movement for change,
Rebecca @ Obama HQ (7/5/07)
As far as my hopes for Senator Obama:
I hope he can put an end to the "MySpaceGate" issue with a response in the appropriate venue.
I hope that he can manage his campaign staff in the future to not make any more mistakes that can/will come back to hurt him in the future.
I hope that if he doesn't win the primary, he will accept the role as Vice President and learn from hopefully 8 years of running the White House and gain some valuable experience to then become President for 8 more.
I hope that he can follow through with his words he so eloquently shares with all of us and not become just another political figure like so many others.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on Senator Obama and I wish him well in the future! I would encourage any of those that are not familiar with "MySpaceGate" to go to the website about it at www.myspace.com/dotherightthingbarack and remember that is a page that was created by and for Barack Obama supporters.
~another average joe
**UPDATE 7/9
I guess that question got answered as to what their true intentions were! I guessed as much since they have a track record of taking actions before thinking them through. When they sent me the initial request to be added to their "Top Friends" list, I was going to ask them if they really checked to see what a persons views were on their profile before adding them. Then I realized that I would just let it run it's course to see how they would handle the situation. I'm happy I took that course of action since they only reaffirmed their inexperienced methods yet once again.
For clarification purposes, they said (as stated above) that they get a large quantity of requests so they can only leave people up for about a week. At first read of this I knew it was false since 1) there have been people on that list for a month or more (I have screen shots of that) 2) I never requested to be in their Top Friends list to begin with 3) My personal page had nothing promoting Barack Obama on it with the exception of his profile picture in my top friends list (right next to Senator Clintons BTW) 4) Which left the cool little logo picture of Barack inside a question mark (which means to question him BTW)
So I guess Jasett and Rebecca @ Obama HQ didn't get the memo about, "The campaign said the new policy is to ensure that senior staff will review materials before they are distributed publicly" or it doesn't apply to the procured website?
In summary; more bad publicity and bruised supporters have resulted from the "Official" site than ever did from the "Unofficial" one which TeamObama touted as one of their concerns for not having control of it themselves. Rookie mistakes from someone that is asking for our vote to run this country. No more time to reign in your staff Senator Obama, ignoring the polls by touting fundraising will not get you elected. Do the Right Thing!
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