Why? Because an honoree is not chosen just to give a speech and be feted. He or she must be willing to make a big donation, usually from the company’s coffers, and — more important — to invite friends and contacts to the gala who will buy $20,000 tables or single tickets for $2,000 to $3,000, bringing new support to the organization.

So imagine that you’ve been chosen as the honoree for the XYZ Foundation and that, as a part of your “honor,” you’ve been asked to fill a number of $2,000 to $3,000 seats or $20,000 tables for the gala dinner in your honor. I don’t know how anyone could go to their family, friends, and associates during these times and ask for this amount of money to go to a dinner. Seems a bit outrageous.

Many of you know that I sit on the board of a national foundation and we’ve seen a similar occurrence taking place. In fact, we’ve lowered the cost of our galas from $500 per ticket to $250 per ticket. The hope is that with the lowered cost of attendance, we can (of course) get more people in the room, but get a wider diversity of socioeconomic classes in the room, too. Our first lowered-price event takes place next month and I think it will be a huge success.

The election is in the hands on the media now, so we’ll likely see a build-up in Obama’s numbers heading into November. The media has anointed Senator Obama as the next President and that’s fine so long as America understands that we have a biased media and unless there are drastic changes (like the increasingly influence of an independent media through online channels), then we’re doomed. A news channel that would simply report factual news or even both sides of the same issues would be a huge success in this country. Oh wait, we already have FOX News and the brainwashed extremists think that it’s biased in favor of Republicans.

Isn’t weird how some Americans will ask for something, get it, and then condemn it?