Obama Has Dinner with Ordinary Americans (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Sitting down for dinner across from the president of the United States is a tremendous honor for anyone, and four carefully selected ordinary Americans had a chance to do that Thursday night with Barack Obama thanks to the campaign team charged with raising money for his re-election.

Associated Press said Obama spent an hour with the group, engaging in small talk about the Chicago White Sox and other topics before the press was escorted out of the room. What they talked about afterward is anyone's guess.

I'm just an ordinary American too, and I'd love a chance to sit across from the president. I wouldn't want to talk about baseball -- but if we did, it would need to be about the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals for sure. I would want to talk about jobs. I'd like to know why his jobs bill only targeted certain categories of people inclined to support his re-election.

Congressional gridlock is another topic I'd love to hear the president address. He was a senator and a state legislator for years before that. He knows the legislative game and how it is played. Why has he been victim to a year of stymied attempts to pass any meaningful legislation?

Obama doesn't want that kind of questioning from someone who is inclined not to vote for him. He doesn't want to hear from people who are opposed to his policies -- that's why the lucky people were selected only from his campaign donor lists. He doesn't want to be sitting across from a family that just lost their home to foreclosure because of bad banking policies or, as MSNBC reported, the delay in a presidential solution to the problem.

Associated Press reported the White House announced two new executive initiatives that target American businesses and help speed products to market. But Obama doesn't want to spend any personal time with a small businesswoman to explain why it took until the third year of his presidency to begin doing something to help business and manufacturing.

Obama likes to keep himself insulated from the real issues affecting average Americans. That's exactly why is campaign will carefully choreograph those sitting across the table from him.

Hey, Mr. President: give me a call. Let's have dinner. I'll even buy.

Dan McGinnis is a freelance writer, published author and former newspaper publisher. He has been a candidate, campaign manager and press secretary for state and local political campaigns for more than 30 years.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111029/us_ac/10310785_obama_has_dinner_with_ordinary_americans

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