Win a Dinner with Obama

Coming from Julianna Smoot, the message was almost poignant: "I've worked for President Obama for almost five years," she wrote in a mass e-mail to supporters on June 16, "but I've never actually sat down for dinner with him." If true, that might be because she rarely sits down. A veteran Democratic operative who led Obama's fundraising operation in 2008, Smoot helped the campaign raise a record-breaking $745 million. She later took the job of White House social secretary, planning parties and state dinners. Now, as a deputy campaign manager for the President's 2012 re-elect, she may be headed toward a new fundraising record: a billion dollars. To get there, her boss will have to cozy up to the wealthy like never before. Since April, Obama has headlined 27 fundraisers around the country, where supporters paid as much as $35,800 each for some up-close time with the President.

Other than its sheer ambition, there is nothing unique about Obama's hunt for cash. All of the President's potential Republican rivals are racing around the country singing for their supper, too. But for the millions of less-well-off Americans whose small donations helped put Obama in the White House, "everybody's doing it" is a poor stand-in for "change you can believe in."