[lbo-talk] A Giant Sucking Sound of the Presidential Election Year

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>LOL. Yes, the Internet is massively "cheaper" than direct mail, but 
>it isn't as "free" as everybody thinks. As publishers say in 
>response to people who think that magazines could be done for free 
>on the web: publishing costs more than just paper, ink, and distro 
>costs.
>
>Infoshop.org reaches hundreds of thousand of people each month at a 
>cost which is pretty low. The Internet *has* enabled activists and 
>ordinary people to publish content online that reaches millions of 
>people for low cost. But if the left wants to compete against the 
>right using the Internet, we have to be frank about the costs.
>
>Infoshop does not sit on some kind of free connection to the web. 
>All that bandwidth has to be paid by someone--Infoshop is lucky that 
>there are geeks who provide the bandwidth gratis. The content has 
>been mostly created by volunteers, but much of it has been organized 
>by myself over the years. Infoshop is a full time project for me. If 
>I found a full time job the website would suffer unless we found a 
>way to pay some folks to work on the website. Now, if Infoshop 
>wanted to do something like Moveon, we'd have to find money to pay 
>staff to write stuff, staff to do data entry and keep up the 
>database, and tech staff to keep everything humming. Sure, we could 
>do more using volunteers, but organizing volunteers always takes 
>time. Even when you are working with highly motivated volunteers who 
>have lots of autonomy, you still have to spend time communicating 
>with them.
>
>So, even a "free" project run by volunteers can quickly start 
>incurring costs as the project grows. There are no easy shortcuts. 
>The Internet has made greatly amplified the power of activists, but 
>it ain't totally free.
>
>Chuck0

The problem of presidential election years for activists on the left 
is not only that they tend to suck many activists' time and energy 
into the self-defeating project of electing the perceived lesser evil 
who turns against them but also that Democratic Party political 
machines suck big money out of small pockets of ordinary Americans 
with liberal bleeding hearts.

I've already posted on the matter two months ago with regard to 
contributions to Democratic candidates during the party nomination 
race: 
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040315/005922.html>.

MoveOn.org, too, is trying to make financial suckers out of their 
"on-line activists," with the goal of getting "500,000 people to 
donate $100 each":

<blockquote>MoveOn.org, one of the best-financed of the independent, 
liberal and controversial political groups spending millions to 
defeat President Bush, is shifting its fund-raising and campaign 
strategy. The group said yesterday it will stop taking large 
donations from rich backers and instead build a more conventional 
political action committee with smaller donations. . . .

The MoveOn PAC, like all PACs, is limited to contributions of $5,000 
and less. But unlike the 527 groups, it is allowed to directly 
support candidates for office.

MoveOn.org was founded in 1998 to oppose the impeachment of President Clinton.

It has continued as a liberal grassroots campaign organization and 
has raised millions of dollars for its campaign against Bush. It has 
a massive network of supporters and claims 1.7 million "on-line 
activists" that have contributed to various MoveOn campaigns.

A lot of MoveOn's money went to the MoveOn Voter Fund, known as a 527 
group for the IRS code it operates under. After the McCain-Feingold 
campaign finance law prohibited unregulated soft money donations to 
the political parties, 527 groups sprung up among Democratic interest 
groups as a way to combat Republicans' traditional fund-raising 
advantage.

The Voter Fund attracted donations from some of the most generous 
Democratic campaign financiers in the country, including 
international financier George Soros.

MoveOn contributors from this area include RealNetworks founder Rob 
Glaser, Costco co-founders Jeff Brotman and James Sinegal, investor 
James Roush, and software entrepreneur and environmental 
philanthropist Paul Brainerd.

The $50 million Pariser said MoveOn will raise would easily make it 
the best funded PAC ever.

In the 2000 campaign season, the largest PAC was Emily's List, a 
women's fund-raising organization, which reported raising $21 
million. The NRA was second, with $17.8 million.

"Without a doubt, this is our most ambitious project yet," Pariser 
said in a teleconference with reporters. But he says MoveOn has never 
set a fund-raising goal it did not exceed. Pariser said the goal is 
to get 500,000 people to donate $100 each.

If MoveOn reaches its $50 million goal, Pariser said about $10 
million will be spent on a get-out-the-vote drive, $20 million on 
presidential campaign TV ads and $20 million in direct contributions 
to Kerry and other candidates.  (David Postman, "MoveOn.org Says It 
Will Limit Size of Donations to $5,000," <em>Seattle Times,</em> <a 
href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001910588_moveon23m.html">April 
23, 2004</a>)</blockquote>Do I hear a giant sucking sound?

And to think that, in the event John Kerry gets elected, MoveOn.org 
will devote its political and financial capital to the all-important 
task of shielding President Kerry from any and all criticisms, even 
from well-deserved ones from his left. . . .

<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/giant-sucking-sound-of-presidential.html>
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>