This May be a Metaphor
The recent winner of the "Win Dinner with Barack Obama" contest, which the Obama campaign has been running for the past year or so, was an actual Obama staffer. From Politico:
One of President Obama's own campaign staffers was chosen for the popular win-a-dinner contest with the president.
Toby Fallsgraff, apparently a member of the campaign's technical team, a wrote in a fundraising pitch that his name was drawn for the contest while he was testing the campaign's computer systems.
"Your chances of winning Dinner with Barack (and Michelle) are MUCH better than you might think," Fallsgraff wrote to supporters. "I know, because my name was randomly selected. That's because I donate at least once every time we do these contests just to check that the website is working properly for you and everyone else."
Which suggests the following: the only people who are entering these contests already work for Barack Obama. In November, he's clearly going to sweep that particular segment of the population.
The other segments are up for grabs.
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Comments:
Jul '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
I'd be more astonished if the odds were better. But the winner being one of only two contributors just doesn't feel as impressive ;-)
Dec '10
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Dang! J Voss beat me to the punch!
Aug '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
I saw a completely different metaphor . . . or two.
Rather than, as Rob said, "the only people who are entering these contests already work for Barack Obama," it's that the only way to "win" under the Obama administration, is to be one of Obama's cronies.
And the other metaphor is that the "winner" will be stuck paying the taxes on his winnings, to the tune of around $560.00
Aug '10
Re: This May be a Metaphor
It's the Chicago Way. You know the big boss, he takes care of you. When he asks a favor from you, it's not healthy to refuse.
I this were a Republican administration and a similar thing happened, the Lamestream Media would be running with for hours every day. George Stephanopoulos would be ON IT!
Jan '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
I'm a database guy. I work with millions of records everyday. Frequently, I'll plant an oddball just to see if my query catches it. It's a common practice.
I'm a little surprised that this is the basis of a campaign pitch. If you're trying to woo support on the grounds that your queries work ...
May '12
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Don't we all work for Obama one way or another?
Sep '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Wait a minute....
Didn't the Obama campaign already have to change the way this gimmick works, because they were, in effect, offering a sweepstakes? And don't the laws regulating sweepstakes require the promoter to explicitly state that employees of the organization (and any related entities) are prohibited from entering?
Any member of the Ricochetoise (and the bar) know the details? That the programmer writing the system wins one of the prizes is, uh, curious.
UPDATE: I did some digging--yes, indeed, self-dealing by people involved with the promotion of a sweepstakes is fraud. Some bright lights running the Monopoly sweepstakes for McDonald's figured this out, and managed to award themselves most of the top prizes between 1995 and 2000. Wikipedia has more on the story.
Edited on June 26, 2012 at 12:05amMay '10
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Kind of stinky. What happened to "staff and families are ineligible..." Were pigs to sprout wings, Satan to take up ice-skating, and my body taken over by Aliens, leading me to make a donation to Obama's campaign in hopes that I could win dinner with him, I'd be crying foul at a staffer "winning" the big prize. Any one else have a twitchy nose?
Apr '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Indeed Caryn, I smell something fishy. But, hey I wonder if you could sell your Obama dinner to a Hollywood Star for 40,000$.
Apr '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Or you could do like I did and enter to win yourself without making a donation. Like all sweepstakes, you do not need to donate to enter. Link to "no donation" entry form below.
https://my.barackobama.com/page/s/om-dinner-with-barack-june-alt
I would pay $560 in taxes for the fun of having dinner with the President and his supporters. I would report all to Ricochet.
Only downside of entering are daily email appeals from the President and his staff and family asking for money.
The perfect counterpoint to a staffer winning would be a conservative who did not make a contribution...
May '10
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Funny stuff.
What's remarkable about this story isn't that the Obama staffer won. It's that they advertised the fact, rather than rerolled the dice.
Jun '12
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Aaron Miller: Funny stuff.
What's remarkable about this story isn't that the Obama staffer won. It's that they advertised the fact, rather than rerolled the dice. · 5 minutes ago
Just more of the same incompetence and tone-deafness that's characterized this gang since the start.
Jul '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
So the rocket scientist/web guy re-pitches this lamest of pitches as odds that are better than we might think (which supposes we have calculated these odds at all), simply because his name was randomly selected?
Hey, Brain Boy. You skipped stats class. Again.
Aug '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
To be clear, the guy mentioned didn't actually "win." He was running some sort of software test, and his name came up as the winner. Yes, he was actually disqualified. But the fact that the "test winner" was with the Obama campaign . . . well, . . .
May '10
Re: This May be a Metaphor
I'm sure Eric Holder will get right on it.
But I'm certain this is only the tip of the iceberg. How do we know that the winner was not only preselected by the Obama regime, but that he's been deep uncover for more than a year and this said "contest" was the predetermined covert rendezvous for him to pass on crucial illegally collected campaign data without raising suspicion?
Just call me a "Sweepstaker"...
Dec '10
Re: This May be a Metaphor
"Dinner with Barrack Obama" --- How special. They get to eat the finest food while the taxpayer gets stuck eating crap sandwiches..
Sep '11
Re: This May be a Metaphor
Doug Scott
How do we know that the winner was not only preselected by the Obama regime, but that he's been deep uncover for more than a year and this said "contest" was the predetermined covert rendezvous for him to pass on crucial illegally collected campaign data without raising suspicion?
I doubt the winners are "deep cover moles"--but there's no doubt in my mind at all that these are carefully-selected, carefully-screened, probably focus-grouped, and certainly well-rehearsed volunteers who are, in effect, making a cameo appearance. There's no randomness--this isn't a sweepstakes where you have legitimate odds of winning. This is much more like the "open auditions" for a show like "American Idol" where they are looking for specific characters with specific histories (real or imagined) to fit a specific role.
Makes me wonder why nobody in the Real World media (as opposed to the MSM) hasn't explored this.