National Coordinated Effort of Hellenes

Political candidates follow a time-honored campaign strategy of reaching out to ethnic groups and religious communities, and Orthodox Christians have been courted this way for years. It works both ways, of course. Now, little more than a week after the election, we’re getting a good look at how politicians and political operatives of Greek descent — many of them prominent in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese — have been working for years to promote President-elect Barack Obama and running mate Sen. Joseph Biden. The Greeks for Obama group, for example, developed this catchy slogan: “If you are Greek and love Obama, clap your hands.”

Opa! Obama!

On Nov. 5, the National Coordinated Effort of Hellenes told supporters that it had raised $500,000 for Obama’s campaign just weeks before the election. (full message appended at bottom of post). Andy Manatos, a public relations executive who also chaired last summer’s GOA Clergy-Laity Congress, led the effort for this group. “Moving the huge American bureaucracy to treat Greece, Cyprus and the Ecumenical Patriarchate fairly is never easy in light of competing American interests,” Manatos said. “However, having Obamakis and Bidenopoulos in the White House opens the door to some good possibilities.”

The blowback came pretty fast. Earlier this week, Greek News reported that the “Obamakis and Bidenopoulos” statement received an angry reaction from “almost every one of the community leaders that participate in the Coordinated Effort.” But, of course, that was more a question of how the press release was handled rather than the facts surrounding the “Coordinated Effort.”

Yes, those “competing American interests” that Manatos referred to after the election. Those would be the interests that are of great importance to the United States, and not necessarily to the nation of Greece. But if you read the statements of Obama’s ethnic Greek supporters, you get a sense that any American interests have been pushed completely out of sight. The focus is for the most part is on three issues: Cyprus, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Macedonia/FYROM naming issue.
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