Democratic Fundraising Typical: Too Little

The Post tells us that Howard Dean's DNC is raising money at about the same pace that Terry McAuliffe's DNC raised it in 2003, with the GOP also not expanding its take. After supplying some $5 million to governor-elect Tim Kaine of Virginia's winning campaign, the DNC is at a large cash on hand disadvantage to the RNC, which owns the field by nearly 6:1.

There are some real areas of concern, and some of them are explicitly by design. I believe that Howard Dean intends to gradually marginalize the big money givers and shift the DNC from a Washington/New York/California-centered party to one with broad roots in American soil. As we know, the pavement of cities by itself doesn't nurture a majority party.

Dean's got some cool ideas on display at Democrats.org. His Democracy Bonds concept is terrific, allowing individual Americans to contribute a small amount of money every month so there is a constant stream of money flowing in.

That being said, the fact that the most scandal-ridden White House since Richard Nixon and most corrupt congress I've ever seen hasn't resulted in a tidal wave of money pouring in to Democratic coffers is worrying. The fact that the GOP hasn't really grown its operation since 2003 should surprise no one. The fact that the Democrats, out of power for more than a decade, haven't managed to grow theirs in that twenty four months is infuriating.

Joe Gandelman remarks:

You can read the defense-explanations yourself. But there are always reasons you can site and always lawyer-like debating points that can be scored. And just as we brush aside spin when it comes from the White House and the GOP we brush it aside in the case of Dean and his fundraising efforts. The bottom line is: Dean is apparently NOT delivering what the Democrats want and need to mount a spirited campaign against the Republicans.

But I'll leave the final, incredibly sensible quotation to the Sandwich Repairman at the Sandwich Repair Kit, who reminds us:

Of course, it's become such a matter of course that it's hard for some Beltway types to stop and reflect that raising money, especially in large quantities from ultra-rich people, should not have anything to do with politics in the first place.

But of course, it does. The best way to minimize the influence of the ultra rich--and let's face it, the concerns that the vast majority of Americans have in the process of living our daily lives are dramatically different from the concerns of the ultra rich--is for us ordinary folks to pick up the slack so they are simply less necessary to the process. I think Dean's instinct on this is 100% correct, but if we don't step up and provide an alternate funding source, the agenda of the Democratic Party will continue to be set by the affluent urbanites who've been part of the problem for so long.

Posted by shamanic at November 12, 2005 8:06 AM | TrackBack