My 9-year-old son and I were excited about seeing President
Barack Obama speak in nearby Fairfax, Va., today. But poor organization by
Democratic Party officials prevented that from happening.
We had tickets for the event, held at George Mason
University, but like a couple hundred other people who eagerly waited in line,
we did not get in. Organizers had handed out hundreds more tickets than they
had seats for.
While I’m personally upset that I did not get to see the
president today, I feel worse about disappointing my 9-year-old son. I took him
out of school for the day to see President Obama speak. My apology to him was
of little comfort.
I wasted a lot of time in this futile effort. I drove to the
Fairfax campaign office Thursday morning (located about a half hour away) and
waited 90 minutes to get tickets to the event. Then we waited in line Friday a.m. for another 90 minutes only to get turned away.
It seemed to me that organizers of Obama’s GMU stop were
much more interested in filling the seats with party faithful (campaign
volunteers and the like) than with average voters like me on whom this election
likely rests.
Virginia is a battleground state. It’s too close to call for
either incumbent Obama or Republican challenger Mitt Romney. And I’m a swing
voter. So, you’d think the organizers of the GMU event would want me there.
I emailed Virginia Democratic party leaders this evening
about my displeasure over their handling of the event. I suggested that a better
way to handle such events is to print up only as many tickets as seats and let
the ticket holders in first. Then after a certain time elapses, they can open the
remaining seats to standbys – people who don’t have tickets but wish to attend.
That seems much more democratic than their current system, which is more like
the airline model of overbooking seats – and equally frustrating.
No comments:
Post a Comment