blogger interrupted

Back in the day, Brian Rothenberg (currently of Progress Ohio) used to be Communications Director for the Ohio Democratic Party.  His relations with Ohio bloggers were, shall way say, wanting.  It all came to a head in early May, 2006, when Rothenberg tried to keep bloggers out of the annual ODP dinner, where Barack Obama would be the featured speaker, by forcing them to pony up the $150 to get in. 

Step back with me, if you will, to the days when ODP didn’t “get” blogging, led by Rothenberg who clumsily deployed a combination of strong-arming, arrogance, bluster, and incompetence that today seems high self-parody.

Finally, if bloggers want the credibility of journalists they really should develop standards like journalists.

So 2006!  At this point, I decided to take it to a higher level, and on my now-defunct blog Democracy Guy, wrote an open letter to Barack Obama, asking him to ante up for a table for bloggers at the 2006 ODP dinner.  As I expected, within hours, Obama’s communications director, Robert Gibbs, delivered, emailing me and Eric at Plunderbund the good news before close of business.

Tim and Eric - Obama just bought a table - 5 seats are now yours - Barack will come over and sit for a bit and you guys can chat with him during the dinner - sound good?

Ohio bloggers starting doing victory laps, (and privately jockeying for tickets), and I chalked up another notch in the old blog belt.  For me, the victory wouldn’t last more than a few hours.  Someone not so happy with the result (I’m guessing Rothenberg, since we’d just made a complete fool of him) started emailing my conviction around…again.  Which resulted in the following email from Robert Gibbs literally first thing the next morning.

Tim - There is a problem with your ticket to the Ohio Democratic Party Dinner.

Everyone who contributes to Obama’s campaign or PAC, or people who meet with him, get vetted through a standard vetting process used by many political organizations.

A few items involving specific criminal offenses between 2001 and 2002 came up during our vet that now make it no longer possible for me to offer you a ticket at the table we purchased for the June 3rd dinner.

Senator Obama has reached out and spoken to bloggers on his national travels over the past year (most recently last week in Nebraska) and we will continue to do so as he travels to help candidates and State Parties.

We still intend to include bloggers at the event and have Senator Obama spend some time with them.

However, I can no longer offer you one of our tickets.

Robert Gibbs

HOPEFUND

Barack Obama, Chair

Of course I didn’t believe Gibbs “vetted” me in the hours between close of business one day, and early morning the next.  But the deed was done.  Bloggers gathered around the dinner table in Columbus which I basically got for them, while the Ohio blogger most responsible for spreading my crap around, Cindy Zawadzki, took my ticket and made damn sure she sat next to Barack.  That’s her on the right.

Irony is nothing if not often…ahem…bitter.

Why do I write this now?  Well, there is the whole launching-my-new-blog thing.  But substantively, as any moron would suspect immediately, this “vetting process” appears to have been complete bunk.  I have since donated $25 to the Obama campaign, once last September at a rally in NYC in exchange for a damn cool t-shirt, and once online this past February, which was immediately matched by some guy in Louisiana. 

None of these donations have come back.  And I don’t want them back.  I want to support my guy, no matter how petty some ODP puke decided to make things two years ago.  I don’t do petty.  I do hope.  So does Barack.  Which is why before I even made the ask, I knew Barack would respond exactly as he did in the first place and step to the plate.  And why despite this episode, I’m still such an Obama fan I did this video to celebrate it.

 

Second, I write about this now because I have a whole lot to get off my chest.  It’s part of the reason for my new blog.  I’m trying to move on beyond the things that used to own me, and the people who used those things to own me too.  I need to own myself, warts and all, assholes be damned.  It’s time to be a whole person, not one who has to hide part of him in order to live another part.  That’s how I got into trouble in the first place.  And if that ain’t hope, I don’t know what is.

So Barack, keep my money.  Please.  As for Robert Gibbs, don’t worry, I know the game you play, and you got played by it.  And Rothenberg?  Well, I think he knows where he stands with me.

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