Former Obama campaign operatives are asking people to pay $5,000 to volunteer for a high-profile Democratic campaign

Mitch Bird and Jeremy Stewart must be crazy.

Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird, two former political operatives for President Barack Obama's campaign who now run the consulting firm 270 Strategies, are running what appears to me to be a scam in which they are asking people to pay $5,000 for a six-week program consisting of one week of political training and five weeks of volunteer work on an unnamed "important Democratic campaign":

Two top veterans of President Obama’s campaigns are asking political campaigners to pay $5,000 per person for the chance to learn their secrets and then work for five weeks in an unpaid campaign job somewhere in America. 

Democratic operatives and progressive activists are questioning this training program launched by Obama campaign architects Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird. The $5,000 program promises access to the wizardry of Obama’s presidential bids — and a five-week, unpaid gig on an “important Democratic campaign.” 

Run by Bird and Stewart’s consulting company, 270 Strategies, the new program’s emphasis on placing paying customers in essentially volunteer roles on Democratic campaigns is atypical in the campaign training industry, and some Democrats say it sets a dangerous precedent. The firm’s first-ever “270/360 Training Intensive” program is scheduled to begin in September.

In case you're wondering, the one-week training program is a staggering $3,500, and it will cost you an additional $1,500 for the five-week volunteer work program on an "important Democratic campaign". 270 Strategies has not named which campaign or campaigns are participating in the program, although I'm guessing the campaign(s) in question are one or more Democratic gubernatorial and/or U.S. Senate campaigns that are considered by most political pundits to be competitive to some degree.

There are several reasons why this is a terrible idea. First off, this reminds me of those expensive golf instruction videos that do virtually nothing to improve a recreational golf player's game. Even worse, there's already a ton of barriers to political participation in our country (no guaranteed paid leave to run for public office, Election Day is not a national holiday, wealthy candidates and big-money interests discourage people from running for public office, etc.), and having people pay thousands of dollars just to volunteer on a political campaign sets up yet another barrier to political participation in this country.

Progressives like me are not the only ones criticizing Mitch Bird and Jeremy Stewart's scheme. Even many Democratic operatives are criticizing Bird and Stewart for asking people to pay thousands of dollars to volunteer on a high-profile Democratic campaign.

If someone were to ask me whether or not I'd be interested in paying $5,000 to volunteer on a campaign, the answer is HELL NO! First off, I don't have that kind of money, and, more importantly, we have far too many barriers to political participation in this country the way it is, and Mitch Bird and Jeremy Stewart are only making that problem even worse.