Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Part B
This is, in a tangential way, a follow-up to my post below.

I got this email this morning from Howard Dean and the Democratic Party (NOT the DSCC or DCCC, who I wouldn't give the time of day):
Our records show that you have donated this year, but hundreds of thousands of Democrats haven't.

So I'm asking you to do something special -- something no one has ever tried before.

You've probably gotten a message from an organization saying that some anonymous, wealthy donor will match your donation. But are those donors real? And if they're able to match so many donations with a single check, why don't they just give anyway? Is it just some gimmick?

We're going to try something different. We've built a unique tool that gives you the power to match someone's donation. If you choose to participate, you will have the opportunity to match the donation of someone who hasn't given yet in 2006.

You choose the amount you're willing to match, write a note to your potential donor about why winning this election is important to you, and wait. We'll find someone who hasn't given yet to take you up on your offer.

You'll receive a note with the new donor's name and hometown, and a message from the person whom you convinced to take the leap. You will have grown the Democratic Party and doubled the amount of your own contribution.

Will you make a promise now to match someone's donation?

http://www.democrats.org/pledge

I don't want to rely on your donation alone. I'm determined to grow the number of small donors to the Democratic Party so that when we win this election, it will be clear that we are accountable to the people, not the special interests.

You know that when you make a donation of any size, you own the Democratic Party. If you watched the news on Friday and saw Republican Congressman Bob Ney leaving a courtroom after pleading guilty to bribery, you saw the clear difference between how the two parties operate.

I took this job with a promise to change the way our party does business. You helped me keep that promise.

Now I'm asking you to make a promise yourself.

Make your pledge to match a new donor's contribution now:
Howard Dean has it. He really knows what it will take to make this country a democracy again. This is an ingenuous use of the internet to 1) connect fellow Democrats (tribalism), 2) to increase the donor base 3) raise money and 4) reduce the influence of big-money interests without resorting to Constitutionally difficult laws.

I wrote my letter and made my pledge. I'll let you know what happens. Hopefully, my pleadings will encourage someone out there to leap into the political pool. It will be through such popular uprisings that our politics will change, our government will change, and our media will begin to smell the coffee.