Comics Industry For Obama

Over on Newsarama yesterday they had an interview with Sarah Grace McCandless, the creator and website moderator of http://comicsindustryforobama.ning.com/. Here's their mission statement in McCandless' words from the Newsarama interview: "It's a central meeting place where Obama supporters across the comics industry can mobilize, with a focus first and foremost on doing a get out the vote push, followed by fundraising efforts for the campaign." Writer / artist Eric Powell (The Goon), did the artwork for the logo. I also love the tag line on the website: "Let's make sure the good guy wins" even though I don't think McCain is really a bad guy, just not a good guy to be the President of the U.S.

I think Comics Industry For Obama is a great idea, I just wish it had been thought of earlier because it seems so obvious. So far there are just about 140 members, including comic creators such as Laura Martin, Mike Mignola, Jimmy Palmiotti, Mike allred, Andy Diggle, Steve Niles, and Denys Cowan. I'm thinking that most of the comic industry (like most people in the entertainment / arts community) are of the Democratic persuasion anyway, so why not get together and proclaim their support for Obama? The website has a good no-frills design and hopefully as more people in the comics industry hear about this, they'll join in and encourage others to do so as well. They have a facebook and myspace page, but myspace annoys the hell out of me (I can't get past the horrible busy design layout that is myspace) and it seems like the only dialogue tha happens on myspace is people saying "thanks for the add."

Warning, soapbox time!: The only thing I don't like about Comics For Obama is that one of their objectives is to raise money for Obama's campaign, with artists doing sketches and donating artwork for auctions for that purpose. I don't know what the total amount of money has been raised for the Obama campaign is, but I do remember that they proudly announced that they raised 66 million just in the month of August! That's just for one month - I think that amount for a whole year is an insane amount to spend on a campaign. I'm sure that the Republicans have similar (if not higher) amounts they're raising and using for their campaign, but either way, dollar amounts like that are gonzo. As Kate has reminded me, television ads are expensive and all the people involved in the campaign need to be transported to this state and that state, but really aren't there enough people just volunteering their own time and resources canvasing their neighborhoods to get out the word? If Obama can't defeat McCain November 4th just based on Bush and the Republican's record the last eight years, well all of the television ads and hopping from state to state are just really expensive window dressings or parties for the already converted.

What if Obama and his campaign used the money they raised and gave them to organizations and programs that would do something productive with those crazy dollar figures (the same applies to the Republicans)? Certainly there are many worthwhile organizations and programs that could really turn their operations around with a few million dollars and wouldn't the press from that show that Obama (and the Democratic party or the Republican party if they went this route) was a making-it-happen candidate, not just talking the talk candidate? I realize that Obama isn't taking matching government funds for his campaign or taking money from Washington lobbyists or political action committees (rather he's getting his insane dollar contributions in smaller amounts from more people) and I admire him for that, but 66 million in one month is still insane. Running for office in the U.S. needs to be seriously overhauled, it needs to cover a span of something like just six months and all of the candidates should have the same amount of not more than 5 million (total for their whole campaign) to run their campaigns. Presently as Mark Twain said we have the "best government that money can buy," except even with all of the crazy money it takes to run a Presidential campaign (and other political campaigns in the U.S.), we still don't end up with the best government.