Obama campaign uses email list for message about Connecticut shooting

The Obama campaign sent an email late Monday directing supporters to the president’s weekend speech in which he promised to take action to prevent mass shootings, such as the one that took the lives of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Our hearts broke on Friday as we learned of the tragic and senseless deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut,” reads the message from Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod. “Last night, President Obama addressed the families of Newtown, offering the love and prayers of a nation, and vowing to use whatever power his office holds to protect our children from such unthinkable acts of violence.”

The email then links to a video of the personal and emotional speech Obama gave Sunday night at an interfaith vigil for the victims of the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday. Axelrod asks supporters to “consider how each of us can play a part in making our country worthy of the memory of those little children.”



Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, has said the president will use the considerable resources it accrued during the campaign, such as the campaign email list, to curry public favor for the president’s policy goals.

The Obama campaign has used the email list to rally supporters behind the president in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

On Sunday, the president did not specifically call for new gun-control legislation, but signaled he would support an effort pledged by Democratic lawmakers to restrict the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity clips of ammunition.

“In the coming weeks I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens from law enforcement, mental health professionals to parents and educators in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” Obama said. “Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? “Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

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