I don’t think Warren supporters are doing a better job at bringing people over to their side at all. She isn’t currently trying to get Bernie’s base so there is no evidence of that. Warren took over the woman vote but her coalition isn’t diverse at all. You guys are writing your own narratives. Most pro-Warren people in the media snipe at Sanders and it makes me wince because I know how easily 2016 can be resurrected.
2020 Democratic Primary Thread: Focus on House & Senate races
- Thread starter mc_brew
- Start date
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
big money covers big bills...this is one thing i can't care about. especially knowing corp/lobby money will be going to the DNC and funding the nominee. no cycle will be brokenSmall donors don't cut it for many Democratic candidates. Back to the rich
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has largely succeeded in funding her presidential campaign almost exclusively with small online contributions. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has too. Other candidates, not so much.
(Steve Pope / Getty Images)
By EVAN HALPER
STAFF WRITER
SEP. 4, 2019
5 AM
WASHINGTON —
After all the promises that fundraising-as-usual was behind them and that charming the wealthy over canapes would take a backseat to chatting with regular human beings, Democratic presidential candidates spent a lot of time this summer in the Hamptons.
Martha’s Vineyard, Brentwood, and the well-manicured estates of Silicon Valley, too.
Paying the bills without paying regular visits to the seaside homes and penthouse apartments of rainmakers turns out to be a lot harder than many candidates hoped.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has twice funded robust presidential campaignsalmost exclusively with small online contributions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has largely succeeded, as well. The others, not so much.
“A lot of them had a big burst of online fundraising at the beginning and thought they were going to be able to keep it going,” said Joe Trippi, who managed the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean, an early phenom at grass-roots fundraising. “They hired beyond their ability to sustain it. Several had to pull back.”
Trippi said he saw a similar pattern with Dean. Small donors can be less forgiving and reliable than big-dollar contributors who grow invested in a candidate’s success. With small donors, success can breed success, but a falter on the trail can touch off a cash crisis.
A number of candidates whose launch gave the appearance of Sanders-like momentum with small donors have seen their online cash machines sputter. Some have nearly flatlined.
Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, for example, built his name motivating grass-roots donors when he unsuccessfully ran last year for the Senate in Texas. He rocketed into the presidential race with more than 120,000 new donors his first week. Most weeks since, he has strained to bring in a few thousand.
O’Rourke’s plan not “to do large-dollar fundraisers” gave way by the end of the spring to plans for several such events. By May he was in New York holding a private reception for “hosts” who raised $25,000 or more for the event.
He is hardly alone.
Sen. Kamala Harris was in the Hamptons in August, where she took shots at Sanders’ Medicare for all proposal. That drew a rocket from the Vermont senator.
“I don’t go to the Hamptons to raise money from billionaires,” he scolded over Twitter. “If I ever visited there, I would tell them the same thing I have said for the last 30 years: We must pass a Medicare for All system to guarantee affordable health care for all, not just for those who can afford it.”
Harris’ fundraising was in the spotlight again a few days later when she hedged on whether she would join rivals at CNN’s Climate Crisis Town Hall on Wednesday. She had fundraisers scheduled that night. After activists took to social media to call her out, Harris accepted the CNN invitation.
As her experience shows, high-dollar fundraising can make for awkward optics, especially at a time when candidates have put political reform at the top of their agendas. At least seven presidential contenders have taken the “Reform First” pledge demanded by a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit End Citizens United, which promises strict new fundraising rules and ethics reform as the first bill they would push from the White House.
Most of them also took pledges to refuse help from lobbyists or super PACs. But the reformer image can be tough to project when candidates faced with a small-donation shortfall turn to intimate gatherings organized by corporate titans, or partners in big law firms, with considerable business before the federal government.
When an African American church-based political group brought thousands of young black Christians to a presidential forum in Atlanta this summer, some prominent candidates were absent due to “scheduling conflicts.” On their schedule: trolling for donors.
Joe Biden was making a pitch at the time to donors who noshed on mini crab cakes in the resort town of Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he owns a $2.7-million vacation home. Harris was in the seaside playground of Martha’s Vineyard, where donors feted her at the home of director Spike Lee. The co-chairs for that event each had to raise at least $10,000.
Sanders and Warren, meanwhile, were at the Black Church PAC event.
A few days later, organizers of a large Native American presidential forum were irked by the absence of Biden and Harris. The former vice president was in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood, being toasted by donors at the home of Nelson Cunningham, whose lobbying firm represents several of the world’s largest corporations. Harris was scheduled to be in Los Angeles raising cash with the help of Hollywood execs. She patched into the Native American forum by Skype.
Both Biden and Harris have netted impressive numbers of small donors online. The same is true for South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is also spending significant time on the big-money fundraising circuit.
Each has found, however, that building a small-donor movement is one thing; building a small-donor movement big enough to bankroll an entire national campaign is quite another.
The political price of spending all that time with establishment donors is not always clear.
“A lot of it has to do with the image the candidate puts out to the world,” said Sarah Bryner, research director at the Center for Responsive Politics. “Biden never made any claims to be a person like Bernie Sanders. He was vice president. He is a Washington insider. He hasn’t sworn off the same donations others have. … The people who are supporting him I just don’t think care that much.”
Much the same, she said, holds for Buttigieg. The calculus is more complicated for candidates like Harris and O’Rourke, who fashion themselves as political reformers.
Poor image isn’t the candidates’ only worry. All that hobnobbing with the elite is also a serious time suck.
“It really warps the candidate’s schedule,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ senior adviser. “Your time is eaten up by other people with these donor calls and small events and traveling to these places to raise money. … Bernie Sanders spends more time talking to voters and packing town halls and rallies. The more voters hear him, the more small donors come. The more donors come, the more people come out to hear him. It becomes a system which builds on itself.”
Warren has been to 128 town halls. Her campaign’s selfie-taking machine is now legendary, logging 52,000 snapshots with voters. She has time to hang around after events that candidates darting off to fundraisers don’t. In Seattle last week, she stayed snapping selfies for four hours.
There has been no other presidential primary in recent history where two of the top three candidates run their campaigns by swearing off bundlers and private fundraisers with wealthy donors. That makes this election cycle a milestone for anti-corruption activists.
But they acknowledge big money keeps finding its way in, and not just in the form of a front-runner — Biden — who is unabashed about cozying up to big donors.
The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA is raising tens of millions of dollars for the general election using legal loopholes to accept unlimited amounts and keep the identities of many of its donors secret. Other groups on both sides of the aisle are using the same types of tactics. And the Democratic National Committee is requiring candidates who want to tap into its voter file, a key tool for campaigns, to show up at big-ticket fundraisers.
That led Warren to a rare uncomfortable place a week ago. On the stage at the party’s “I Will Vote” gala dinner in San Francisco, she spoke forcefully about rooting out corruption.
Among those in the audience? VIP donors who paid $50,000 for a table and entrance to a private reception.
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
this thread becomes the same fukking thing:
1) bernie bros caping
2) 2016 rehashed (incorrectly)
3) a million conflicting polls that mean nothing this far out (with #bidenboyz providing zero substance to the conversation, nothing to point to why biden is a good candidate, just cosigning any poll that has him leading)
4) a monthly appearance from @Frank Grimes stating that warren isn't electable because trump will call her pochaontas
5) some nap spam but i put him on ignore so i don't see it
we need a debate, a new big policy proposal, or people to drop out to stimulate new convo....
1) bernie bros caping
2) 2016 rehashed (incorrectly)
3) a million conflicting polls that mean nothing this far out (with #bidenboyz providing zero substance to the conversation, nothing to point to why biden is a good candidate, just cosigning any poll that has him leading)
4) a monthly appearance from @Frank Grimes stating that warren isn't electable because trump will call her pochaontas
we need a debate, a new big policy proposal, or people to drop out to stimulate new convo....
I think that's a dumb move, Pence helped solidify that important white evangelical base.
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
And it was obvious that was his only purpose as VP. Ask yourself how often do you forget he even exists until you see a picture of him or read about him.
He's served his purpose, the evangelicals aren't leaving Trump now so he's expendable.
For sure, but that base is locked in right now. Pence being the servant that he is will give Trump cover and his blessings if it came down to that. He'd probably even say it was the Lord's will that he serve his country this way.
Something about Daniel or Moses then
y'all get a little too heated in here for me, but I enjoy the engagement:Bruh are you mad at what she wanted or how things turned out?This might be one of the dumbest responses I ever seen. She was one of the main supporters of the 94 Crime Bill that but millions of Black people in jail. To this day she is a strong supper on the war on Drugs with mainly target Black people. I was in the military. She supported the War in Iraq. A war the killed over 5 thousand troops, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. She also had a terrible record as SOS. Not even going mention her record in Haiti, and Honduras. I could go on to mention her support for NAFTA, and TPP, her race baiting in 2008, but i’ll stop here. I see you post a lot. You always come off as someone who looks at politics as a game/team. This shyt affect people lives. It quite literally life and death with these issues.
The real world is messy
Yall are just as idealistic and aren't prepared to make difficult decisions...and don't bring up that goddamn crime bill...cause your boy was right in line to cast his vote.
This dude said she supports the drug war today
Clueless b*stard... you might need to go back because you CLEARLY haven't been keeping up.
So what are you telling me? Bernie is going to never use the military? What are we saying right now?
I thought money in politics was bad 
You forgot people talking about how they like Bernie but hate his supporters. Truth is, I could give a fukk about any of these people on a personal level because I don’t know them. Just whoever will do the best job. People are caught up in everything else and it’s really because no one is actually talking policies. We just had a climate townhall and no one is debating the different climate plans in here.this thread becomes the same fukking thing:
1) bernie bros caping
2) 2016 rehashed (incorrectly)
3) a million conflicting polls that mean nothing this far out (with #bidenboyz providing zero substance to the conversation, nothing to point to why biden is a good candidate, just cosigning any poll that has him leading)
4) a monthly appearance from @Frank Grimes stating that warren isn't electable because trump will call her pochaontas
5) some nap spam but i put him on ignore so i don't see it
we need a debate, a new big policy proposal, or people to drop out to stimulate new convo....
What almost annoys me is that Bernie's supporters keep making him out to say or think or behave way more accomplished and expressive than he actually is.
If it weren't for interlocutors "reinterpreting" his statements and levying their hopes and dreams on Sanders then he wouldn't be nearly as high as he already is.
The guy is shockingly daft and shallow. Its surprising so many people love him.
If sanders were not as far left and just as repetitive in that message he'd basically be Beto status.
If it weren't for interlocutors "reinterpreting" his statements and levying their hopes and dreams on Sanders then he wouldn't be nearly as high as he already is.
The guy is shockingly daft and shallow. Its surprising so many people love him.
If sanders were not as far left and just as repetitive in that message he'd basically be Beto status.
Why Clinton voters say they won't support Obama
Why Clinton voters say they won't support Obama
The attack of the PUMAs, or a dozen reasons why Clinton voters are still too angry to come home.
Why Clinton voters say they won't support Obama
The attack of the PUMAs, or a dozen reasons why Clinton voters are still too angry to come home.
Berniewood Hogan
IT'S BERNIE SANDERS WITH A STEEL CHAIR!
unions wont fix this, and i'm not anti union...these jobs are super elastic with respect to labor availability