Obama Tickets Free? Work 6 Hours to get one, unless your a party insider

The latest? Several Dems who didn’t get convention speech tickets are griping about the apparent “first come, first serve” fraud served up by their leader’s campaign. In the wake of Denver press reports about the campaign demanding that ticket recipients volunteer in exchange for the prized passes to Obama’s Invesco Field acceptance speech comes news of possible preferential treatment for donors and other favored workers. All is not well in Obama-land. Wah:

As the Barack Obama campaign begins doling out tickets today to his historic Invesco Field speech, some of those who missed out are questioning whether the system really was first-come, first-served.

Several of them said they were upset not because it appeared the ticket give-away wasn’t as advertised but because the campaign perpetuated the idea that the vast majority of passes would go to regular people of all backgrounds and political beliefs.

Instead, several of those who missed out said they suspect the bulk of the tickets were passed out to people who worked for - or gave money to - the campaign.

“It just makes me angry,” said Katherine Thayer, of Denver. “If they’re going to go out and say it’s first-come, first-served and then turn around and reward people who volunteer or gave money, then they ought to be up front about it.”

She and others desperately hoped to see Obama accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination Aug. 28.

Billy Reed, of Arvada, said he signed up minutes after the announcement of the ticket plan, which was unveiled at 2:30 p.m. Aug. 6. But he missed out, and others who volunteered for the campaign got tickets even though they didn’t sign up until the next day.

The Obama campaign refused to say how many tickets were set aside for donors and volunteers.

From the comments section at the RMN:

votingdem writes:

I was one of the local democrats who registered online immediately after 2:30 p.m. on August 6. I got a phone call from a “Matt,” trying to get me to volunteer for 3 separate shifts to get tickets. When I told Matt that I work 2 jobs and would be unable to put that much time in, he said that I would have to “take my chances on the lottery” for my tickets. I said “what lottery, it’s first come, first served.” Matt said he and the Obama campaign had no control over the ticket process, and blamed the Democratic National Committee. Needless to say, I didn’t get my tickets, just an email suggesting I volunteer. This leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I’m starting to wonder if Barack is just like every other politician out there. I’m very disappointed. I thank the Rocky for the story and I hope they look into it further. Letting the “ordinary people” in was a great idea, too bad is wasn’t true.