The Barack Obama Campaign Store Rip Off — Poor Need Not Buy

-By Warner Todd Huston

He cares about the little guy, Barack Obama does. He’s for all sorts of wondrous new programs and handouts for the benighted poor in this country. He’s like Moses leading them to the Promised Land, isn’t he? Well, if he is, apparently he doesn’t expect the poor to be wearing any Barack Obama gear as they dance off into the sunset with the Pied Messiah marching before them playing his mesmerizing tune of hopenchange.

OK, enough metaphor mixing, let’s get down to brass tacks. Barack Obama is ripping off the public with his Internet Obama gear store on his campaign website theONE.com (well, OK it’s really www.barackobama.com/, but who’s really taking notes here?) His gear is so over priced that a regular guy might find it a bit daunting to deck himself out in messiahgear for the upcoming coronation… sham… er, I mean “elections.”

Let’s just take the most common Barack-a-brac that the average gungho Obamaton might want to wear to show his sycophancy… dang, er, I mean support… for the Obamessiah. Let’s consider that a commoner that stumbles onto the messiah’s webstore would want to buy a hat, T-Shirt (union made of course) and a campaign button. After all, that’s the bare minimum that a supporter could buy, right? The coolers, underwear, and S&M collars will have to come later, I’m sure. First the basics.

So, let’s get a patented Hopenchange T-Shirt. One will click onto Barack-Mart and see that “our price” — we say “our” because we want to be inclusive. Don’t you feel part of the team already? — we see “our price” is a mere $25. Man. $25! Aren’t we led to believe that Obama supporters make like, what, $8 an hour, because he appeals so to “the poor”? So, these poor schlubs have to work like three hours to afford this Barackaphanalia?

Well, maybe we’ll be able to afford the hat better.

So we go to the hats section and see that our first offering is the Obama ’08 Logo Embroidered Hat (black) and “our price” is $15. Sheese, that’s two working hours lost to this basebarack hat! Yikes.

OK, OK, how about a simple campaign button? That can’t be too crazy, right? It’s just a little button, after all.

So, we click on over to the O-buttons page and what do we see but button after button at a flabbergasting $3 each. That’s 1/3 of an hour of work just to buy a stinkin’ button!

So, let’s add up what it will minimally cost to deck ourselves out in Barack-a-brac so that everyone will know we are an Obamaton.

T-Shirt, $25, check  
Hat, $15, check  
Button, $3, check  
Shipping, $7.05 and will take two weeks or more to get to you  
Total, $50.05, checks not wanted, give us a credit card

Jeeze. That’s about 6 and 1/4 hours of work at $8 an hour spirited away by the messiah for his O-parrel! That’s 3/4 of a day at work for the downtrodden to be able to afford to be the well-dressed Barakite.

That seems pretty stiff to me.

Now, let’s contrast this with the McCain campaign’s store prices, shall we?

Well, we click on over to see one of McCain’s T-Shirt offerings and find that it prices in at $15. Not quite as bad as $25. Oh, sure you can get Mccain shirts that are more expensive, but here is a nice one so let’s throw that one into the ol’ shopping cart.

Now for a McCain hat. Hmmm, 17 buckaroos. A bit steeper than the Obama hat. Well, OK. Republicans are all supposed to be billionaires, right? They can afford it, man. Shopping cart.

And now for the McCain campaign button. Wow, what a difference. They are all at a rock-bottom, bargain basement price of $1 each! Obama’s are three times more expensive. For the price of one Obama button I can get THREE McCain buttons, one for me and one each for my wife and my boss (some may say those last two are one in the same, but I mean the guy I work for and my wife).

So, let’s see how the McCaingear adds up:

T-Shirt, $15, check  
Hat, $17, check  
Button, $1, check  
Shipping, $5.80 for US Post  
Total, $38.50, check’s in the mail Johnny boy

Total for the Obamessiah gear $50.05 and for McCainaphenalia we come up with $38.50. That is a full $11.55 cheaper for the McCainiac gear, folks.

So, John McCain saves poor people over an hour of their wages if they were to shop with him! Seems to me that John McCain is the better bargain.

Choosey shoppers choose John McCain.

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston