After crushing all competitors in the online world, Barack Obama has fallen from grace, along with everyone involved in this sordid affair. Basically what happened was that paralegal Joe Anthony started a myspace fan page, garnered 160,000 friends since November 2004 and when he was refused his asking fee of $39,000 plus fees, the Obama campaign turned their back on him. Obama's team went to MySpace and wanted to take over Anthony's site, however they were given the address but not the fan page.
From The Washington Post:
"We wanted to work with Joe. But at the end of the day, this page is bigger than him," said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki. "This is uncharted territory for everyone involved, and look, six, five months ago, could we have predicted that a MySpace page would have 160,000 friends?"
Anthony, meanwhile, asked to be compensated for his work, to the tune of $39,000 plus fees.
"It's not really about the money. The past 2 1/2 years that I spent on that page is worth more than $39,000. It's symbolic. It's me saying, 'I won't be bullied around,' " Anthony said.
All of the parties are crying foul here, and frankly none of them look good. Obama online comes out looking mean and nasty, running over the little guy just because he wanted to be compensated for his time. Anthony was tarred and feathered as a greedy volunteer who was only in it for the money, though I frankly don't see it, $39,000 dollars for a list of 160,000 names is a bargain in politics. Then there is MySpace itself, where the future lays for these wars of attrition between candidates' and their friends.
|