Activists pledge to withhold millions if Obama cuts entitlements

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If President Barack Obama gives in to Republican demands to cut Social Security and Medicare, it could cost him.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) delivered a petition with the signatures of 200,000 donors and volunteers to the president’s re-election campaign headquarters in Chicago Friday.

Organizers said that Obama will have to get re-elected without their help if he slashes the social safety net.

During the 2008 presidential election, the group claims it donated $17 million and 2.6 volunteer hours.

“It’s not a question of who they’re going to support for president, they’re going to vote for Barack Obama,” spokesman T. Neil Sroka told The Associated Press. “It’s a question of where their time and money is going to go.”

Other former volunteers may be ready to find another candidate to support.

“I don’t know who I’m going to vote for yet because there doesn’t seem to be too many people on the horizon, but I will vote for someone whether it’s a Green candidate, whether it’s a communist, I don’t care,” Mary Ellen Croteau said. “Somebody who’s going to stand up for people.”

Activists delivering the petition were given the cold shoulder by the campaign.

“She wasn’t even cordial,” Donna Conroy said of the Obama staffer that met them at the door.

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt later released a statement that didn’t reference the group by name.

“Americans elected the president in 2008 to take on the big challenges facing our country, and he’s engaged in an effort to do just that,” LaBolt wrote.