D.C. Sports Team Owner to Obama: Enough With the Class Warfare

Ted Leonsis, the owner of the NHL's Washington Capitals, the NBA's Washington Wizards, the WNBA's Washington Mystics, and the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, D.C., has had enough of President Obama's class warfare rhetoric. Here's Leonsis's take, from his personal blog: 

My dad was a waiter. My mom was a secretary. Neither attended college. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and Lowell, Massachusetts. I attended public schools. My parents - in their best year - earned $31,000 combined. My dad worked for tips - often received in change - as he worked a counter for breakfast and lunch at a diner. My dad, too, once lost his job. I remember the angst in our household.

I attended Georgetown University which at the time wasn’t a need blind school via college loans. I paid them all back five years after I graduated.

I have great empathy for middle class or lower middle class America. My horizons as a young adult were not expansive. I was programmed to be a produce department manager at a grocery store in my neighborhood. That was my dad’s aspiration for me. I would have been proud to work hard to become a leader in a grocery store and I bet I would have been good at it, too. By luck and hard work, my career took a different path.

I say this as I read all of the rhetoric about Class Warfare, the rift that is being created between economic middle and lower class and as the President said “those millionaires and billionaires.”

The real rift in philosophy though is do you want the Government to create jobs and stimulate the economy or do you want America’s small business to be the engine of growth?

Read the whole thing here.

Leonsis, who has contributed to both Republican and Democratic campaigns in the past, isn't the only sports team owner to come out against Obama. Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, spoke with THE WEEKLY STANDARD last week in Orlando following the GOP debate.

"Any of these people...would be preferable over what we've got" in the White House, said Johnson, who supports Mitt Romney. Asked how many other NFL owners are supporting Republicans over Obama, he said "there's a few" but didn't elaborate.