Michelle Obama emails me:
I'm excited for the chance to meet you and whoever you decide to bring to dinner.
I really hope you give this a shot.
Give $3 or whatever you can to be automatically entered for you and a guest to have dinner with Barack and me.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is also pining for my company:
I’ve had the privilege of meeting thousands of you in your diners, town halls, and homes as I travel from state to state. I wish there were more hours in the day to spend more time with each and every one of you.
That’s why I wanted to grab a bite with a supporter like you to hear your questions and thoughts on how to fix this country.
Wow!
I hope my buddy Mitt is going to be less testy to me when I give him the 411 on fixing the the country than he was the other day with Brett Baier.
It’s $5 to sit down with Mitt. (Some people put a higher premium on the pleasure of their company.) Let just hope the Mittster will take me somewhere nicer than one of “our” diners.
C’mon Newt, one-L Michele, Ron, Texas Rick, Rick from Pennsylvania, and Jon—I’m waiting for my invites….
Actually, I am not waiting.
Aside from the notion that people in political life should be able to fake fake sincerity better than the above emails indicate, I find these transparent appeals for money demeaning—to the candidates, not me, unless I were fool enough to click on the donate button. Just ask for the money, already.
I don’t need to be your friend. I need to know that you can do to repair the country.
And, like many people, I do not respond well to generic and patently insincere flattery.
Fortunately, I am less grumpy about all these emails than Jeremy Lott, but poor Mr. Lott has been so deluged that he feels that he is being stalked. Lott shares his feelings in a piece with this title:
You’re Starting to Creep Me Out, First Family
I can understand Lott's frustration, in part because he is also being bombarded by email from the Bidens, Veep Joe and Dr. Jill. But it is the constant contact from the First Couple that seems to upset him:
The bottom line is that I am willing to deal with the vice president's slightly loopy letters because, hey, he's Joe. But lately I'm beginning to worry about the first couple. They're sounding so desperate that a restraining order may be in order.
Look, nobody enjoys the carnival aspect of politics more than I do. You won’t find me complaining about the horse race aspect either because a campaign is about winning. One of the horses is going to the winner’s circle, where he or she will have a profound impact on the country for the next four to eight years.
But we are in serious times so please stop pretending to be my friend and convince me you can run the country (and not into a ditch). Politics can be colorful and (I admit) a lot of fun, but we should not allow this campaign, with so much riding on its outcome, to degenerate into a reality show.
That is why I am hoping that the GOP candidates will politely turn down Donald Trump’s invitation to a debate moderated by himself. National Review’s editors explain why the Trump debate is a publicity stunt pure and simple.