Obama Aide Reggie Love Touts "Dinner with Barack and Michelle" Campaign Fundraiser

Love is in love with the dinner contest: "Get on that here"...
President Obama's closest personal aide, "body man" Reggie Love, left the White House in November after trotting the globe with his boss. He's suddenly returned as a campaigner: Today Love sent his very first fund raising e-mail for the 2012 campaign, touting the "Dinner with Barack and Michelle" contest.

Love, 30, spent four years with Mr. Obama, and his wide array of very intimate duties included Presidential food wrangling on the road, as well as dining with his boss--which is the point of his e-mail.

"I've also eaten many, many meals with him," Love wrote.

Thus Love is enamoured of the dinner contest, he said.

"I kind of love this "Dinner with Barack and Michelle" contest," Love wrote. "You all have to do this. Get on that here."

The subject line for the e-mail is also "You All Have To Do This." The faux homeboy vernacular is pretty goofy, given that Love is exiting Mr. Obama's orbit to finish a graduate degree at an Ivy League university. And typically "You All" is spelled "Y'all," isn't it? The goofiness can be credited to whichever OFA staffer wrote the e-mail, of course.

And the goofiness factor gets even higher as the e-mail touts the exclusivity of dining with Barack and Michelle.

"I know that dinner with Barack and Michelle is something that usually only happens with the girls, and no one else," Love/the OFA staffer wrote.

"You should know this practically never happens."

Just to point out the silliness of that statement, the guest lists for 2011's three State Dinners collectively had about 700 people, all of whom dined with Barack and Michelle. A couple hundred more people dined with Barack and Michelle at the President's 50th birthday party. And then there was the APEC Leaders Dinner, the Return State Dinner, the Bipartisan Dinner for Congressional leadership, the US Combatant Commanders dinner, and the Governors Dinner, which add a couple thousand more names to the list of people who have dined with Barack and Michelle, just this year.

Of course, those aren't the kind of intimate dinners OFA is promoting in its effort to woo "Everyday Americans" to drop cash into campaign coffers. Inviting guests to dine with the President at the White House would probably raise far more money, but that's off limits under federal election rules.

"Dinner with Barack and Michelle" is the President's third time raffling himself off as a dinner date. He dined with the four winners of the first dinner contest in October at The Liberty Tavern, but has yet to dine with the four winners of the second contest. OFA this week released a new video of the Eater in Chief talking about the first dinner, which followed five previously released videos. The current contest closes on December 31.

Three winners will each be allowed to bring one guest to the dinner, and they will all have to sign documents agreeing to be used in campaign materials.The assigned retail value of the prize package has jumped from $1,075 for the first dinner to $1,600 for the current dinner. It is taxable to the winners, and includes airfare and a one-night hotel stay.

The text of Love's e-mail:

XXXX --

You may know me as the tall guy who followed Barack everywhere he went.

As the President's body man for the last four years, it's been my privilege to help him with whatever he needs: making sure he's on time, finding some food when we're on the road, or playing a quick game of basketball (he won, mostly).

Of course, this also means I've also eaten many, many meals with him.

So first of all, I just want to say thanks for supporting the Obamas and being part of this campaign. It means a lot, not only to the President, but to all of us who've worked by his side.

Two: I kind of love this "Dinner with Barack and Michelle" contest. You all have to do this.

Get on that here.

You should know this practically never happens.

While Barack wants to do these dinners throughout his campaign, I know that dinner with Barack and Michelle is something that usually only happens with the girls, and no one else.

The fact that this dinner is with the two of them should tell you how much it matters to them to know that you have their backs out there.

I wouldn't let this one get away.

Donate $3 or whatever you can today to automatically be entered to win a spot at dinner for you and a guest:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Barack-and-Michelle

Thanks,

Reggie
##

*Photo by Pete Souza/White House, taken in the Oval Office on June 16, 2009.