Fundraising for the DNC

On Saturday I wrote about an idea I was kicking around. In short, I wanted to pool the donations of this site's readership to support the Democratic National Committee, thus giving us a collective voice louder than any small individual donation could offer.

I figured that if 334 readers donated $25/month ($300/year), that would total over $100,000 -- real money, and money that would give us a voice (even if only a small one) inside DNC HQ.

Readers went crazy with the idea, debating the merits of actually forming a PAC -- a political action committee able to donate money to specific races (in our case helping progressive candidates). This idea is far more exciting than my original one, but also requires a great deal of work (lawyers, paperwork, meetings, etc.). While a laudable longer-term goal, there's just no way I could do a PAC at this time.

Heck, I barely have time to blog. Between that and my day job, and volunteer umpiring, and cycling, and my myriad other side projects, and, oh yeah, my wife -- I simply have zero time left for a project of this magnitude. I was graciously offered a great deal of volunteer work by many in the dKos community, but I would still have to organize things. Again, I can't do it. At least not in the near term.

My original idea still stands, and I will work to get the DNC to implement it. This is how it would work:

I would set up a "donate to the DNC" button, much like the Amazon Paybox link this site sports. People would follow that link to make hard dollar donations directly to the DNC. I would collect nothing, thus avoiding campaign financing pitfalls. I would merely be a fundraising conduit.

The DNC would track donations stemming from dKos, giving the site "credit" for the fundraising. Thus, the more dKos readers donated to the party, the more attention the DNC would have to pay to our little community. It's exactly the concept behind Bush's "pioneers" -- fundraisers that bring in more than $100,000 to the GOP.

And, to allay the myriad agendas of everyone that visits this site, I would ensure that the money would be earmarked to the eventual Dem presidential nominee. Granted, many of you complain that you wouldn't support this or that candidate. I have my own tentative preferences, but ultimately I don't care who the nominee is so long as he beats Bush. I'm sure many of you agree.

I agree that this idea is not as sexy as starting a BlogPAC, but it's the best I can do right now given my time constraints. However, I will continue to kick the PAC idea around, with the help of many knowledgeable people (including several lawyers) who have offered their services pro bono. I will definitely pursue the PAC option if the idea becomes more feasible.

Posted February 18, 2003 08:27 AM | Comments (42)