Barack Obama held a campaign event in Pueblo, Colorado over the weekend.

The entire city was shut down — and many businesses were prevented from opening.

As Obama reminded the nation during his amber waves grain infomercial last week, people are hurting.

Obama made them hurt even more. Welcome to spreading the wealth by blocking wealth generation. How did he compensate the small business people impeded from making money? By giving them tickets! Narcissus shrugged:

Barack and Michelle Obama will be in Pueblo Saturday. They will hold a rally at 3 p.m in the Union Avenue district. But the doors to some of those businesses will be closed.

For security reasons the secret service has ordered some of them to shut down from 10 a.m. To 5 p.m. Saturday. But some owners say they lost money Friday, too, because of construction work to build platforms and stages.

“You shouldn’t just meet Joe the plumber, meet Julie the salon owner, who is mad that you closed me and ten of my girls down for two days,” said Julie Aragon, owner of Studio 127 salon on Union Ave. Aragon and other business owners estimate they’ll lose hundreds of dollars Saturday because of the secret service restrictions.

“I can’t even open my door tomorrow,” said Rhonda Murry, the owner of an antique shop on Union Ave. Murry spent $150 to attract customers in town this weekend for a large antique fair. “This was a big antique weekend and we’ve lost our revenue for basically two days,” said Murry.

The small business owners in the area wanted to know–”Who planned this?” said Aragon.

According to the city of Pueblo, the Obama campaign selected this site. The campaign office wouldn’t comment on their site selection process, but members of the Obama campaign gave the affected business owners VIP tickets to the rally to make up for the inconvenience. For some, that wasn’t enough. “Although it may be a nice picture on the wall, how is that going to change our financial status, it doesn’t,” said Terre Heath, owner of Studio 127 salon on Union Ave.

Ross Kaminsky and Face the State hear from Democrat Sheila Conlee, a Pueblo business owner who protested Obama and was shut down and shut up:

Sheila Conlee, proprietor of Amore Antiques & More, is one such aggrieved business owner. She tells us this weekend is typically one of her busiest, as Pueblo plays host to a twice-annual antiques fair. The only problem is, she had no choice but to shutter her shop for the day.

So, as any good patriot is wont to do, Conlee exercised her First Amendment rights in protest. She adorned the front windows of her shop with signs exclaiming, “I am Sheila the Shop Owner and I lost my wages today thanks to you Obama”, “Socialism is not Democratic,” and “I am Proud of my Country.”

The Obama campaign didn’t take the criticism lightly. Event setup crews parked two porta-potties in front of Conlee’s store, using them to anchor a white tarp hung to obscure the storefront from view.

“I guess this is a sign of things to come if he is elected,” wrote Conlee in a Sunday e-mail to FTS.

Yup, just more gangland tactics from the Obama machine.

comments (93)   trackbacks (8)