Does Obama's re-election campaign lack diversity?
CHICAGO - A photo of the president's campaign staff that was posted on the Barack Obama Tumblr page has been making the rounds on the Internet, and drawing criticism.
From NBC Chicago: A photo of the president’s campaign staff that was posted on the Barack Obama Tumblr page has been making the rounds on the Internet, and drawing criticism.
Critics say there’s something missing from the photo taken at One Prudential Plaza in Chicago on April 4: diversity.
But is there?
Of the roughly 80 young campaign staffers shown in the photo (a reported 300 were gathered in the room), only about four of them appear to be non-white. The picture appeared on BuzzFeed under a post titled: It’s Game On in Chicago.
The article took a reader through one night the Chicago campaign headquarters with Jim Messina and crew:
NBC Chicago: How Obama’s re-election campaign is like Harold Washington’s
On the evening of April 4, campaign manager Jim Messina gathered more than 300 staffers into a large room on the sixth floor of One Prudential Plaza in Chicago, the nerve center for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. The occasion: the one-year anniversary of opening the headquarters in the president’s hometown. Messina grabbed a microphone that was set up for him to address his army of twenty-somethings, who were seated at his feet on the floor, spilling on to the filing cabinets, stretching far out into the vast floor they occupy in the office tower. The staffers knew it was a night to party — the plan was to head to a nearby bar for drinks to celebrate — but first they had to listen to a speech from the boss.
The post notes that the operation has grown to mammoth proportions during the previous year and now boasts close to 700 full-time staffers on an entire floor at the Prudential building.
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