Believe it or not, it was considered unseemly for politicians to hit the campaign trail and ask for votes in the early days of the republic. It was expected back then that surrogates would go out and do the stumping, since an office-seeker begging for votes was seen as rather presumptuous.

Well, needless to say, that didn’t last long.

I wonder what someone like George Washington or John Adams would think of the spectacle of the president of the United States publicly donating money to his own campaign in hopes of getting others to shell out cash to keep him in office.

While it’s common for television cameras to show up to capture images of the president pulling the lever for himself on election day, we’ve never seen anything quite like this before:

Obama is a man of humongous hubris, but even he must be a little put off that he is in the position of having to be videoed donating $5,000 to his re-election to entice supporters to pony-up money. He’s “not just talking the talk, but walking the walk,” to keep his job—pretty big of him.

The Obama campaign spent more money than it collected in June, so maybe we should cut him some slack. The campaign is strictly grassroots, after-all, and void of all those Romney fat-cat donors:

Well, we all know that Anna Wintour and Sarah Jessica Parker are just good down-to-earth people. So were the rest of those grassroots types that turned out for that $40,000 a-head plate gala for Obama.

Obama raised over $2 million at the dinner. It was a lot less than the $15 million he got at the George Clooney dinner the month before, but every little bit helps when you are up against all of Romney’s fat-cat donors. You have to get the message out and being the president of the United States standing behind the bully pulpit isn’t enough.

You’ve just gotta have all of that grassroot support, too.

The amount raised at the Wintour dinner—just try to say the name “Wintour” without a snooty diction, it’s impossible—almost matches the number of all those grassroots donors that Vice President Joe Biden considers “second family.” That isn’t hyperbole or exaggeration, either.  Just read this fundraising email that Biden sent out Monday:

Dear Friend,

This isn’t hyperbole or exaggeration:

If we don’t win this election, it will be because we didn’t close the spending gap when we could.

Because right now we’re seeing that voters have a choice between two very different men.

And the only way someone like Mitt Romney—who’s asking Americans to put him in charge of their taxes while refusing to come clean about his own, who wants to repeal Obamacare, end Medicare as we know it, and give more tax breaks to billionaires who don’t need them—defeats someone like Barack Obama, is if the other side spends us into oblivion.

Tomorrow is the most urgent fundraising deadline of this campaign so far. Will you make a donation today to make sure we can keep this close over the last 100 days?

It’s already starting on TVs and radios in swing states, and it’s not going to stop.

In the last two weeks of this month, Romney and his allies had an almost 2:1 spending advantage in Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia—and that could be the election right there.

We’ve got more than 2.4 million grassroots donors building this the right way.

But we’re running out of time to close the money gap when it really matters.

Please donate today, and help make sure our message can get through to as many voters as Mitt Romney’s does.

Barack and I honestly wish we could thank everyone who contributes to this campaign personally. You’re our second family, you know.

Thanks,

Joe

Isn’t it great to know that for just as little as a $3 donation, you can be a member of crazy Uncle Joe’s second family? Thanksgiving should be a hoot. Don’t expect to get invited to any of those Hollywood dinners, however.

You might get lucky and win an invite to a big Obama party like his birthday bash. Don’t worry about donating to his campaign. That won’t increase your chances of winning—or maybe it will.

Regardless, just keep those donations rolling in like Obama. What could be more grassroots than a man shooting a video of him donating to his own presidential campaign?