I know WV doesn’t really matter much to Democrats anymore, but on a lark I gave money to both campaigns to see what would happen. I gave 27 bucks to Bernie since he likes to quote that number so much, and I gave 25 to HRC because that was the option closest to it for HRC.
Bernie’s was run through ActBlue, and it was quick and easy and I could use paypal. When I was done, I was done.
Hillary’s was run through the same system I trhink the DSCC an DCCC and DNC use, and did not take credit cardsv paypal. While donating, I had to make sure I clicked in the right places to make sure I didn’t accidentally make it a monthly donation, and then when I was done, it asked me to make another bigger donation.
Within 15 hours of making the Sanders donation, I was texted from a person in Wheeling (the only city near me of consequence, 16 miles away), inviting me to a rally tonight. Had a brief back and forth, told them I was busy, etc.
Have not heard from the Clinton campaign yet other than receiving multiple email solicitations for more donations.
Make of that what you will. I’ll keep you all posted.
Steve in the ATL
Where’s that poster who always complains about Bigfoot John Cole bigfooting…uh, John Cole this time
Brachiator
Smart ground game.
Also interesting that they wanted you. I keep hearing that Bernie only wants the young-uns.
I kid.
Also, text message, not a phone call. Maybe a little thing, but again a smart use of technology and time.
Barbara
Bernie has so few donors it’s easy to reach out to them individually? Seriously, I don’t know. No one from Obama’s campaign ever reached out to me before the nomination was effectively decided.
Icedfire
Even as a Sanders supporter, the disparity you describe is a little shocking to me. If there was no other lesson that should’ve been drilled in the the Clinton team’s heads after 2008, it’s the importance of mobilizing and streamlining small donor voters. 2012 should have also reinforced that lesson.
Germy
Meanwhile…
Manager announces layoffs to 1400 Carrier Air Conditioner workers whose jobs are moving to Mexico
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ttxGMQOrY
John Cole
@Barbara: Are you serious? I had people from the Obama campaign calling, texting, and email me within hours.
Tegdirb
Well, at least one part of Sanders’ online campaign is working well.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@John Cole: As did I.
Tenar Darell
Someone has automated quite a few processes to be able to invite you right away to a rally closest to your home. Good programming.
I get this feeling that subsisting on smaller dollar donations makes Dems, at this level, smarter campaigners. Why doesn’t that work on local and state level races? I guess the DNC really is sabotaging themselves.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@John Cole:
Yep, I did too.
gene108
They are annoying as hell, when it comes to fund raising.
Gave one of those groups a few bucks once. I get peppered with calls asking for more money. They need a better, less intrusive strategy.
I might could’ve maybe given a few bucks here and there, if they asked real nice, like say a mailer (which I do get) but I know, if I give them a few bucks via mailer, I’m going to get bombarded with phone calls.
Iowa Old Lady
Good for the Sanders campaign.
Peale
Yeah. Strikes me as odd, especially since I had heard that she had hired on many of 2008 people. Maybe the difference is that in 2008 e-mail asking for more money was enough? I don’t think it was.
So when we hear that she’s hired a bunch of Obama’s campaign people, who were they? A speechwriter? The office supply vendor?
pamelabrown53
Please, John, don’t turn this awesome site into another polarized cesspool. In the beginning, I contributed to both campaigns and what I found is that while the Hillary campaign does indeed send too many Donate! e-mails for my taste that the Bernie campaign fund raises over perceived grievances and conspiracy theories.
So, basically, from my POV I don’t get this post.
gene108
@Tenar Darell:
Much less publicity and lower voter turn out, unless they are up for re-election in a Presidential year.
Most folks, even political engaged folks, do not know much about who their state legislators are, or who is on the city council, etc.
Therefore it only takes a small surgical strike of CU money to define a legislative candidate as “out of touch” with his/her constituents and people do not have access to enough information to slough through the ads and figure out what’s actually correct. The ad’s work as news to inform people about candidates.
It is not a coincidence that the Republican resurgence has coincided with a post-CU political world.
Applejinx
Sounds about right. You should find that Bernie also keeps asking you for money but smaller amounts, and yeah you should be asked if you want to come to stuff because we need to ask you to volunteer. It’s all volunteer and I think we’re actually not being given anything from the DNC: we’re buying/renting/leasing even the computer-based stuff we use to work with Democratic voter lists, a process that benefits everybody. Pretty sure we pay to do that.
Win or lose we’re going to have to have a better organization than the Democrats so we don’t have a recurrence of the midterms. We do have to organise or lose so we are organizing.
I hope the Sanders campaign continues to reach out to you and get you to come to events, and I hope this doesn’t bug you. Like I keep saying, I learned to physically volunteer at Balloon Juice :)
gene108
@pamelabrown53:
Sanders has a better field operation in WVa than Hillary does, at the moment.
He has a website for donations that is more user friendly than Hillary.
Is there a hidden meaning in this?
That is for us do decide, John just reports his findings.
pamelabrown53
@John Cole:
Me too. I probably wouldn’t mind as much if I had the bucks to donate every 5 seconds.
Soylent Green
OT, a militia protest is scheduled for noon PST at the federal courthouse here in downtown Portland. It’s a block from my office so I’ll go out and have a look at Michele Fiore, who is leading the demonstration. I came to work wearing a Forest Service cap but have been advised not to wear it openly. The big question is whether these dopes will be brandishing their assault rifles.
Calouste
Paypal, eh? If Sanders won the primary and I was Karl Rove, I’d arrange to have $1,000,000 made in donations to Sanders via Paypal that can be traced to Russia and use that as the October surprise.
gene108
@Applejinx:
????????????????
Isn’t Bernie running as a Democrat. In theory, shouldn’t his organization work with Democrats, the way OfA did in 2008?
Or is Bernie just running as a Democrat, because he knows he’ll go nowhere as an independent.
Gin & Tonic
@Applejinx:
I thought Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination. Was I mistaken?
pamelabrown53
@gene108:
Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Thanks for the info. A question: why, IYHO, is Bernie spending $$$ in West, by gosh, Virginia, over other states?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Soylent Green: Good advice on attire. Please report as the Balloon Juice Portland journalist (when time allows). I hope it’s peaceful; pleasant is unrealistic.
Iowa Old Lady
@Soylent Green: Would it be legal for them to carry assault rifles to a protest?
Take care.
Tenar Darell
@gene108: True. That cash is like a freakin’ thumb on the proverbial scales, isn’t it? Someone is working on blue map in WV and other places, maybe? Hopefully? Pretty please with sugar on top?
Then of course there’s the decline in local coverage caused by shrinking & disappearing newspapers. Didn’t the Koch’s just buy a paper in…. Illinois? (Yeah, Google is my friend but I don’t feel like talking to them today ;-)
SarahT
Dunno, have never had any problem donating directly to Hillary’s campaign site using my credit card, even for $5 donations (all I can afford, really). What I don’t do anymore is donate to anyone through ActBlue because, A) I’m bombarded by emails from candidates I’ve never even heard of; B) On two separate occasions ActBlue billed me for donations I never even made. Not acceptable, IMHO
SP
You know how many comments this thread has? 27!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Soylent Green: Of course they will. They lost. That’s all they have left, a brief waving of metal dicks before they scatter to the four corners of our fine nation, to eat snacks and wait for the Obamapocalypse.
Betty Cracker
I also donated to both campaigns. I too get more stuff from the Bernie campaign, but it’s almost all about local watch parties, etc. I’d estimate the number of emails / texts / etc., containing official campaign communications / donations solicitations is more even. Maybe I get more attention because Florida.
Soylent Green
@Iowa Old Lady: Oregon is an open carry state.
Gene108
@Tenar Darell:
A blue WVA is going to be run by Manchin clones. It will not turn into a socialist workers paradise.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Iowa Old Lady: My understanding is that guns are prohibited in court facilities and public buildings, but I am not admitted in Oregon.
Anoniminous
OT & BTW …
What happened to the dildos sent to the Armed Insurgency of Derp? Are they all lonely and forlorn?
Asking for a friend.
ruemara
I find this a bit silly, as I’ve been on the donor list for both. Sanders is not young & hip, but he attracted that demo to run his campaign. They’ve been doing amazing work in fundraising. You are also a possible disaffected white male in white by god Virginia. Targeting poor and middle class whites who have abandoned Dems for the Republicans due to lack of populist message (hey, don’t blame me that Team Sanders is running with the Webb strategy) has been the thing that will lead to victory. So contacting mad white dude who wants to burn up the status quo with his $27 makes perfect sense since Bernie needs a GE level strategy to win the nom. Clinton is doing primary strategy like an incumbent. Lazy, email focused but not surprising. We’ll see if that’s enough.
@Gin & Tonic: well, you can’t be progressive & a moderate, so at some point, Sanders will disavow his campaign as establishment due to the dirty Democrat label.
Amir Khalid
@Applejinx:
A-HA! The infiltrators conspiracy inadvertently expose themselves!
LeonS
@Peale: If its the same 2008 staff as Obama there is one difference…
pamelabrown53
@SarahT:
Thank you, SarahT. I don’t use either ActBlue or Dem. Congressional Committee to determine to whom I donate. I research the candidates and attempt to decipher the candidate’s chances in his/her district. That way I have only myself to blame.
Ruckus
@Anoniminous:
Do you really want to know what happened to them? That just sounds like a very, very large can of really disgusting worms. The -what happened can-, not the storage device.
Anoniminous
@Amir Khalid:
There are people who consistently vote Democrat, even work on campaigns, but do not self-identify as a Democrat. More on the subject can be found at Pew Research.
Tractarian
You can’t donate to Hillary with a credit card?
How can you do it then?
Applejinx
@gene108: I call it as I see it. I volunteered for OFA, worked for them twice and we won. I’d hoped I was making an impression as someone who could do things because winning the Presidency is not enough.
I heard absolutely nothing from them otherwise and couldn’t dig up information on local races or midterms at all.
As soon as I volunteered for Bernie, I was being listened to and told where I could volunteer. We also had/have people who wanted to make up new systems and totally replace everything we were using from the Democrats, but that’s not what the campaign is doing. We’re told repeatedly to trust the system and trust that working with it, even if it’s imperfectly, will lead to the results we need.
I got asked to be the data team captain, and ended up being one of several who were doing things as needed, volunteering and coming in to the Keene office, and that’s where I’ve been juice-blogging from. I’m back home now, and we won our race handily, and my awesome female boss is on to Nevada to work there.
Before we parted company, we ALL exchanged emails etc. and that goes both ways: the volunteers exchanged information in case the campaign forgot about us, and our departing boss made damn sure to get people’s information because we’re going back into action when the campaign rolls back around to our area again. Massachusetts, Vermont… we’re not done, but for now we’ve done our job in NH.
I think we don’t care whether the DNC chooses to work with its volunteers and maintain a working grassroots organization. We’re going to do it anyway on the assumption that they won’t do it for us, as they did not do in the midterms or anytime that’s not specifically a Presidential race.
Xenos
I am only +1 at the moment so I am not going to shout out the old rugby song about Columbus, but it would be suitable to remember him by.
Anoniminous
@Ruckus:
I was thinking if the protesters in Portland today are unable to carry their dick substitutes that go “pew, pew, pew” they could carry their grassroots supplied dick substitutes.
SarahT
@pamelabrown53: Exactly right. But unfortunately some individual candidates do use ActBlue to process donations & then ActBlue gives your name to about a million other lists. Grrrr…
Applejinx
@pamelabrown53: Because Americans live there :)
inventor
Sanders’ campaign had done a lot right. His grassroots organizing and fund raising have been superb.
His campaign may want to try to herd some of their supporters, though. I don’t think defamation and character assassination of Civil Rights heroes is a good way to win the SC primary. The hate-filled feeding frenzy on John Lewis has taken me aback. Truly very disturbing.
LeonS
@Anoniminous: I don’t want to speak for @Applejinx but I can’t help but think they meant to say “to have a better organization than the *DNC*”
Joel
i get solicitations from Obama all the time. Clinton sounds like she’s taken his people’s system. But times change and you can’t take an 8 year old approach to this election.
Marc
At a local level, the AZ democrats seem to like spamming me with donation emails Every Single Day. Not one day seems to go by when I don’t get two or three in my inbox. They shared the email address with the DNC, so I’m getting alarmist donation emails from the national committee too. I’m just sending them to by junk file now, which automatically deletes stuff.
rp
I’m sorry, but this post makes no f**king sense. I just went to Hillaryclinton.com and right on the front page there are options for donating $5, $15, $25, and $100. There’s also an option for donating a different amount. Once you enter your personal info., you’re prompted to enter your credit card info. The whole process took about 2 minutes.
What site were you using?
Applejinx
@SarahT: I’ve noticed that as well. Not that I can give money very often! I just have to watch carefully because most of it amounts to spam and isn’t being directed where I think is appropriate.
It’s kind of like the Votebuilder thing: if we wanted to be REALLY pretty prancing purity ponies, we could run everything totally separate. Everything that we touch from official Democrats, whether it’s ActBlue or the Votebuilder thing, has gotchas but the message is ‘keep calm and bernie on’ and to trust the system.
It’s NOT perfect, it is infested with various ridiculousness, but that’s the resources we’ve got and we are coalition-building. We must be able to work with Democrats no matter how they act. Beats working with Republicans, which we will also have to manage to do when Bernie is elected. More gridlock is not OK, we’re going to have to do better than that somehow.
Plans never survive initial contact with the enemy, so I’m personally cool with staying very on-message as far as GOALS. That’s one way to communicate.
inventor
@Joel: I think you’re right. Clinton needs to build a more up-to-date system, right now!
Linda Featheringill
@Gene108:
That’s a shame. The hard working people of WV could use a little economic equality.
Anoniminous
@inventor:
Rat Fvcking goes back to the Ancient Greeks. Just because someone says they are a supporter of X doesn’t mean they are, in fact, a a supporter of X. Nor does it mean they aren’t an supporter.
Being an obnoxious boor and jerk is proof only that the person is an obnoxious boor and jerk.
Gene108
@inventor:
A good chunk of Sanders supporters will vote for anyone they feel is not beholden to special interests. If it is not Sanders than it will be Trump.
They are not in it for the revolution. They are in it to tell the establishment to go fuck itself.
Chyron HR
So we’re all going to be polite and pretend that if Hillary’s staff started sending JC texts, he wouldn’t be yelling “Leave me alone, you vultures! This is why we deserve to lose the election!”
Brachiator
@ruemara:
This would be a terrible strategy. Did these people learn nothing from 2008?
@inventor:
This is self-defeating and beyond idiotic.
Amir Khalid
@Anoniminous:
I know that. I was just funning wqith Applejinx.
A Ghost To Most
Very curious as to why the network of Chuck Toad and Mrs. Greenspan is spreading this narrative:
Dem Race: Referendum on Sanders, Not Clinton
cckids
Speaking from here in NV, I’ve donated (tiny amounts) to both campaigns, I get phone calls every week from Hillary’s campaign, asking me to come to the caucus. I’ve also received personal, not blast, snail mail from her that told me when, where & how the caucus works. We had a very nice older (60’s) lady come door-to-door through our apartment complex; she was working from a list of registered Dems.
I’ve gotten 2 blast emails from the Bernie campaign. That’s it.
The Democratic organization here generally has GOTV down, lots of labor union people going door-to-door & working hard. It was a force to be reckoned with in 2012.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: I donated $30.00 to Bernie & haven’t even seen another donation letter from him. Hillary was sending them every week ‘Are you with me, Paul’
Barbara
@John Cole: John, I gave big money and no one contacted me until the summer. I was not inundated with e-mails, not until we were really aiming for the general election, which he started doing fairly early.
Anoniminous
@LeonS:
And that wouldn’t be hard. The Boy Scouts have a better record at sustained state and local organization than the DLC.
@Amir Khalid:
Oops. My bad.
And now … back to work
SarahT
@Applejinx: Sorry, not feeling the Bern at all, but I get what you’re saying. I think…
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Barbara: I wonder if it wasn’t a big money effect. I gave very small money and heard from them shortly.
inventor
@Anoniminous: True dat!
Still, the piling on by those I know to be legitimate Bernie supporters is nuts.
A simple statement by Sanders could quash it in a moment. Something to the effect: “John Lewis is an American hero who has sacrificed greatly for all of our civil rights. I will always honor and respect him and, of course, take him at his word. Now, let’s get back to real issues that affect real people…..”
? Martin
I’m willing to bet that the national campaign is just passing this information down to the state campaigns to run with. Some will be on the ball, some will not. Some will have an army of volunteers to do individual outreach, others won’t. That’ll be true in each campaign.
You don’t organize direct voter outreach at the national level. You can provide infrastructure for it, but you can’t staff it. Your local observations are just that – local.
Mike in DC
New Nevada poll out. Tied, 45-45. Last one in December had HRC up by double digits. The first wave of SC polls will be fascinating.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@inventor:
WTF?
inventor
@Gene108: I really hope you’re wrong…but I fear you may be right.
inventor
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I’d rather not link, but you can go to DK or a number of other “progressive” sites and see it, usually in all caps.
pamelabrown53
@Applejinx:
??? So, what’s your point? Don’t Americans live everywhere?
Kazanir
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I wasn’t going to donate until the general but now I’m tempted to run this test myself.
Kay (not the front-pager)
So why didn’t you just contribute to the Clinton campaign through ActBlue? Why use 2 different methods of contribution and then complain that one is not as good as the other?
Applejinx
@SarahT: That’s okay. It’s a free country and we still get to vote for what we want, and how we feel things should be run :)
In the Keene office, we have made a point of being decent towards other campaigns whether Hillary or Trump. We had one fellow who went and got donuts and brought them to a Trump office. He gave people donuts, and then identified himself as a Bernie worker and said he was glad they were engaged in the political process even if he didn’t like the same candidate they liked. Then he came back and told us about it.
We also had people deliver pizza to our offices, gain entry, and start tearing up data. That wasn’t Keene but we had to be on watch for the behavior. We did have a lady come in, make personal phone calls on Berniephones, create an email account of [email protected] and steal a couple coffee cups.
Baader-Meinhof, she wasn’t ;)
Peale
@Kay (not the front-pager): He’s testing responsiveness.
rp
Question: If Sanders continues to do well, does Obama step in at some point and endorse Clinton?
Renie
@SarahT: I also only use ActBlue and I hate all of the democratic national party people emailing or calling me so I never donate directly to them anymore. I’m also so lazy I only donate when I can use paypal so I don’t have to go hunting for my credit card.
get off my lawn
FlipYrWhig
@rp: Never gonna happen.
pamelabrown53
@Linda Featheringill:
No doubt, it’s “…a shane [T]he hardworking people of West Virginia could use a little economic equality”. But at what price? This election, to me, is looking more and more like the angry white man’s election. I see Sanders running a campaign based on Jim Webb’s with a leftist white man’s twist: our whole democratic coalition goes kablooey because of his narrow economic vision. Everybody who doesn’t agree with hi is under the bus. John Lewis, Planned Parenthood, HRC, etc.
Anyway, I do think that W Va might be good for Bernie in the way it was good for Hillary in 2008: Hillary was for the white working class but this time it’s Bernie trying to poach the Trump populist voters.
gene108
@Paul in KY:
I have donated no money to either candidate, but I am getting e-mails from both Hillary and Bernard asking for money.
Plus Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, the DNC, the DCCC, and for some reason I wound up on Corey Booker’s e-mail list and get a few e-mails from him every day or one of his staff and a few other NJ Democrats.
I wish all this e-mail attention translated to actual popularity with real people…
Peale
@Calouste: Bah. From offshore banking centers like Cayman Islands, Channels, and Faeroe. Yeah, the latter isn’t really a banking center, but it was once home to Vikings. Make him try to explain it.
Luigidaman
All I get is messages from HRC. Of course, I’m in Ohio. Perhaps that has something to do with it.
LeonS
@Gene108:
Not insane enough to vote for Trump, or any Republican, but I can empathize.
Steve from Antioch
Interesting. I’ve made two contributions to Sanders- a few hundred dollars each time – and I haven’t been contacted. I’m in California, Oakland area now.
When I made contributions to Obama, I was contacted several times by people who lived in my neighborhood when I was living in San Francisco.
I wonder if Sanders just doesn’t have a ground game in California yet? Maybe he’s getting so much support from SF Bay area that it isn’t practical to personally contact everyone? I wonder.
Matt McIrvin
@FlipYrWhig: I’ve seen occasional articles wondering why Obama hasn’t endorsed anyone in the Democratic primary race, and this baffles me. Do sitting Presidents ever do that, when they’re term-limited and it’s a seriously contested race? It’d be pretty stupid.
ellie
I have some money, not a lot, to Hillary and was invited to a call with her tomorrow. I live in Colorado. Maybe it has to do with where you live.
Mike in DC
@Steve from Antioch:
Cali’s primary is in mid June. It may just be they aren’t putting a lot of resources there yet.
sparrow
@pamelabrown53: working-class voters?
sparrow
@Peale: I’m preeety sure that’s going to get flagged as fraudulent from the get-go. But you were kidding, of course.
Ruckus
@Steve from Antioch:
Nothing for Sanders. Yet. But also in CA and don’t expect them to be very active here yet. But I did volunteer for Clinton. They arranged meetings for when I was at work so that’s not going to happen. And then they asked me to go to Nevada on my dime for 2-4 weeks to help in their primary. And that’s not happening either. Maybe both candidates have too many of us from CA willing to do whatever is necessary, seeing as how we have a democratic government and it seems to be working quite well, so many of us recognize on which side our bread is buttered.
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t remember George W. Bush weighing in on the Republicans in 2008.
goblue72
@inventor: You’re all paranoid if you think that is the case.
mclaren
Gotta keep up those payments for Chelsea Clinton’s 10.5-million-dollar apartment overlooking Central Park West somehow, Cole.
mclaren
@gene108:
No, Bernie is the Manchurian Candidate. A vote for Sanders is a vote for Communism! Godless atheistic worldwide-dominating communism!
Felanius Kootea
I have made donations to both Bernie and Hillary using ActBlue and was able to use my PayPal account for each candidate (plus I have an ActBlue Express account set up so I don’t have to retype credit card info for any donation). I received email acknowledgments from both and have been bombarded with emails from both campaigns. No phone calls or texts from either campaign presumably because I live in California and that primary is not until June. At this stage of the campaigns, I would think they were crazy if they spared any focus from Nevada or South Carolina to call or text me, personally.