Over the past few weeks there have been some allegations that President Obama has been passing off campaign travel as ‘official events’. The RNC even wrote a complaint to the Government Accountability Office about it.
The White House maintains taxpayers are not being charged for campaigning and that the Obama campaign is going by the book when it comes to funding these trips.
Some have even been critical that the speeches President Obama gives during these presidential trips to battleground states are similar to his fundraising messages.
White House Spokesperson Jay Carney has defended the similarities in the addresses President Obama gives to both campaign fundraising audiences and to the crowd during ‘official visits’.
“The suggestion that there is something wrong with the fact the president says the same thing about what his vision is and what his policies are and what his beliefs are in front of official audiences, non-political audiences, as he does in front of audiences who are his supporters. I think is kind of ridiculous,” Carney said during a White House press briefing in April.
When you take a look at video coming from campaign fundraising events and compare it to the ‘official visits’ the message and even the wording are extremely similar at times – so much so that it can be tough to tell which event is which.
Trying to tell the difference has become a bit of a game around my area of the office, so much so that it seems like it could become a great game show of it’s very own. It could be called ‘Fundraising or For Real?’ Try playing at home.