The Sanders campaign announced Saturday that it raised $33 million in the most recent quarter and a total for the last year of $73 million “from more than 1 million individuals who made a record 2.5 million donations.”
That’s a great BEGINNING. It is record-breaking. It shows citizen engagement. But the US is a country of almost 320 million people. 1 million is one 320th of the population. (What percent is that?)
Now let’s see if we can figure out what percentage of Bernie’s likely supporters have donated. (Math is haaaard.)
Sanders is polling at somewhere around 31% among Democrats nationally. Barack Obama received 65.9 million votes in 2012. 31% of 65.9 is 20.4 million. So Bernie should have 20.4 million donors. This rough calculation tells me that only 3% of Bernie’s supporters have donated to the campaign!
Hillary Clinton also should have many, many more donors than she has so far. I’m not even going to try to do the math, it’s obvious.
You should give at least $1 to your candidate. You owe it to democracy.
If you support Bernie Sanders, donate $20 today. Or more.
If you support Hillary Clinton, donate $20 today. Or more.
if you support Martin O'Malley, donate $20 today. Or more.
You really do have a responsibility to do this. To democracy, to the rest of us, to yourself.
Not Just Candidates
And it isn't just candidates you should be donating to. Republicans have a huge infrastructure of conservative support organizations, largely funded by corporations and billionaires. These are the outfits that spew out right-wing propaganda 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 400 days a year. How MANY times have you had to listen to things like, "Taxes take money out of the economy," or "Corporations always do things better than government," and the rest of their anti-government, anti-democracy crap? But how often do you hear a response? Hardly ever — and the reason you don’t hear that response is because YOU are not donating money to progressive organizations.
Democracy doesn’t have an advertising budget. It’s up to you. Donate to progressive organizations and help build the ability to get the word out.
(I'm a Sr. Fellow at Campaign for America's Future. But really, there are a number of great progressive organizations you should be supporting and I am sure that people can name several in the comments.)
Democracy doesn't have an advertising budget -- it's up to you. Donate, donate, donate.
And while we’re talking about Bernie, take a look at Bernie’s Democracy Daily.
From October: Wait. Back Up. Sanders Only Has 650,000 Donors?