UPDATE 125 donors, $3,196.96 and one donor wrote me and told me she heard the Dean Scream on msnbc yesterday. – That costs $30.01 folks!
As many of you know, Susan Hu posted a diary called Three Top Dem Fundraisers Resign over Dean yesterday.
Democratic fundraisers say that there is growing concern over what they call Dean’s lack of attention to major donors and that donors are much less likely to give money if they don’t have sufficient opportunity to meet with the party’s leadership.
“When you don’t have the chairman to fundraise with, or any principals of the leadership, you can’t get major donors to help you,” a veteran Democratic fundraiser said. “You want the leaders of the party to sit down with them so they can discuss their plan.”
“It’s frustrating to be the staff person in charge of that group,” the fundraiser said. “No one wants to stay in a job in which they’re not successful.” The fundraiser added that New York is a competitive place to raise money and that donors often demand detailed explanations of how the money will be spent.
I made this comment:
Do they want to spend more time with Dean? Then I suggest they join him in canvassing the whole country and getting more people involved in the democratic process.
I think this is a scam to get Dean out of the DNC chair. I think the rich fat cats in DC should hungry for a while (a long while). This is why independents and people on the fence do not vote for the democratic candidates nor any candidates for that matter. They see right through their bullshit.
I also read another diary on Daily Kos by Bob Johnson on the same topic titled Beltway Dem insiders whine, ‘Dean stole our Golden Goose!’ I don’t know about you but I was furious. I watched Wolf Blitzer in horror on Sunday night and I wanted to smack Wolf and his guests upside the head when they were treating Dean with such contempt. For me, it was personal, I felt that they were treating me with contempt. I want them to take notice and know that we are real people and that is whom Dean represents.
I was getting ready to head for the fridge to try to forget my anger after I read SusanHu’s diary but decided to do something different. With a little help from my fellow Kossacks, I was able to set up a webpage on the DNC called We’ve got Dean’s back. Within minutes, SusanHu contacted Howie Martin of http://howieinseattle.blogspot.com/ and http://www.seattlefordean.com/ and Howie helped cross-post the link on these and other blogs.
I am so grateful to SusanHu and Howie Martin for helping me with this campaign. In less than 24 hours, the “We’ve got Dean’s back” DNC website received $660.16. Not bad, but we need to do more. Here is my suggestion:
1. We need to choose a day of the week where we all make contributions to the website. I was thinking Friday because that is usually a day when most people receive their paycheck. I think it’s symbolic because most people live off of their paycheck and have to work for it.
2. Make a contribution on that Friday if Dean get’s attacked by the media, Republicans or people that are democratic in name only (eg. Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, etc.). I can write up a summary diary every Friday on Booman Tribune and cross-post it to the Daily Kos of the attacks that were made.
3. Have everybody contribute a small dollar amount with a penny. I suggested 5.01 or 10.01 but found out that the DNC only accepts a minimum contribution of 10.00. I also found out that they don’t have paypal but I have already written the DNC and requested that they set up a paypal account.
4. If any station airs the Dean Scream, we can do one or two things: a. either make an immediate contribution of 10.01 or make a contribution of 30.01 on Friday.
5. Please send me an email and let me know what you sacrificed for your contribution. Did you give up your Friday night Pizza? Did you give up your weekend 12 pack? Let me know.
I really don’t want to break all of your backs on this but I think if we hit hard, the media and the republicans will take notice and hold back on their Dean attacks. I would like to consider this a working diary. Please feel free to offer suggestions on how to make this campaign successful. I will update and revise this diary as they come in. Please support We’ve got Dean’s back.
I guess questions, questions. (If you’re already working on the website, ignore this).
Going forward the party needs to reach out with the best tools at the lowest cost/hit, and provide clear communication to the public. The fifty state concept resonates, but the online presentation seriously lacks. The old “three-click” rule applies to political websites even more than commercial, and is a project that can be done without spending a ton of cash.
I also think that it would put the lie to consultant claims that only “professional” fundraisers have the ability to raise cash. Establishing a central access point as I’ve described may substantially reduce costs while raising contribution levels. Also reduces the time we spend bouncing around the web trying to find information.
I think you have some great suggestions there. Unfortunately, I do not work on the DNC website. The DNC website has a page in which you can create your own fundraising page but it leaves you with little to work with. I can only add a paragraph. I wrote the DNC this morning and I hope to hear back from them.
btw: 28 donors, $721.22 so far.
You raised some excellent suggestions.
1. Howard Dean’s message and statements should be there on the website.
2 & 3. Links to all 50 states. Absolutely right. We should be able to link to our states. I should be able to click my home state of Ohio and then go to my district. My Congressman, Pat Tiberi (r) won with 62 percent of the votes BUT he spent 11 million dollars compared to Brown’s 3,000. I am communicating with 3 different organizations in Franklin Co. OH but why in the world are we not together? We should all be communicating from the same website. They should be able to go to the DNC website, click on OH, then their district and see where all of the meetings are and what they are doing.
While Dean has his feet on the ground and visiting all of the states, he should have a programmer making these changes.
Great suggestions rba.
Thanks, and your answer tells me that more than a handful of people feel the same way. That map is one generated by Robert Vanderbei @ Princeton, and now comes in 3D (among other renderings).
At the DNC meeting in Montana last weekend, we were told that there is a new tech team at the DNC headed by Joe Rospar. Dean has said that they’re spending a lot of money on technology and that “a new web site is coming soon.”
I’ll send this to Howie.