Raffle winners dine with President Obama

[Tx4obama]

President Obama rolled up to dinner Thursday evening with four lucky campaign raffle winners.

The president's motorcade arrived at about 6:48 p.m. at The Liberty Tavern on Wilson Boulevard in the Clarendon section of Arlington, Va., according to pool reports.

The four winners who get to dine with the president are: Juanita Martinez, a retired teacher from Brighton, Colo.; Wendi Smith, an artist and retired professor from Corydon, Ind.; Ken Knight, a U.S. Postal worker from Chandler, Ariz..; and Casey Helbling, an entrepreneur and small business owner from Minneapolis, Minn.

PHOTO here: http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1011/presidential_prize_56b0a12b-0bbe-495a-a9e9-33ecc5c5b6a0.html

[Historic NY]

1. better article......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaigns/whos-picking-up-the-tab-4-obama-campaign-donors-chosen-to-have-dinner-with-the-president/2011/10/27/gIQA5NFrMM_story.html

[UrbScotty]

2. Interesting mix of professions - Teacher, professor, postal worker, small business owner.

Good mix of people who had the President's ear tonight.

He is a man of the people!

[Tx4obama]

3. Ed on the Ed Show tonight interviewed the four folks that ate with Obama. n/t

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. I can't find anything that says how long the dinner lasted. Did he stay for dessert and coffee?

How cool would that be? I'd ask for a bite of his pie.

[Tx4obama]

5. One of the guys that Ed interviewed said ....

that it lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.
He also said that Obama asked everyone if they wanted dessert and 'they all said no'.
I think they messed up, because if they had dessert they could have spent extra time with the Pres ;)

All four said that Pres Obama was very nice and answered all the questions they asked, and Obama talked about his family life.
And that to them, Obama is the same person that they voted for in 2008.

The Obama campaign paid to fly them in and paid for 'one night' in a hotel.

Edited to add

Ed seemed to have a hard time getting them to talk much about specifics about what was said regarding policy/politics.
They all seemed a bit tired or star struck.
One of them mentioned that they talked about education, healthcare, and student loans.
One of them said that they tried to talk about the bad guys on the other side but that Obama didn't want to do that and moved the conversation onto other things.

That's about all I can remember.

[cherokeeprogressive]

6. The President asks you if you want dessert and you say NO? WTF?

I would have not only said yes, like I said I would have asked him for a bite of his pie.

I wouldn't have asked him a SINGLE question involving politics of any kind.

[ellisonz]

7. Wishes someone under 30 had been there...