A group of disgruntled progressive Democrats sent President Barack Obama a message, Friday right in his hometown.
Don't touch entitlelments, they say.
Members of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee delivered 200,000 signed petitions to Obama's Chicago reelection headquarters at 11 a.m. on Friday. The petitions say they will refuse to donate to or volunteer for Obama's reelection campaign if he indeed offers cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as part of a debt ceiling solution. (Find a copy of the petition and a place to sign it, here.)
"President Obama: If you cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits for me, my family, or families like mine, don't ask for a penny of my money or an hour of my time in 2012. I'm going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates who will fight to protect our Democratic legacy."
The PCCC - a grassroots organization with nearly 36,000 members in Illinois and over 750,000 members nationwide - collected the petition signatures online at BoldProgressives.org.
The over 200,000 signed pledges includes grassroots donors who made over $17 million in donations and volunteered over 2.6 million volunteer hours to the President's 2008 campaign.
The signatures also represent more than one-third the number of contributors to the President's campaign in the most recently reported fundraising quarter.
The demonstration comes as the president battles with Republicans on ways to stave off a catastrophic prospect of America defaulting on its debt.
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Weeks of talks have rattled establishment politician from both sides as they challenge both Republican and Democratic ideology.
Obama said he will put his reelection on the line to make sure the debt talks favor a balance approach to cutting costs and increasing revenue.
The deadline for raising the ceiling comes on August 2.
