> >Okay, so where are those tens of millions of dollars going to come
> from?
> -Organized labor gave what, something like $40 million to Dems in
> -2004? {No, in the hundreds of millions as your amended post noted]
> -They keep contributing despite getting kicked in the head over
> -& over - and losing election after election.
>
> Okay, so you want to cut out all union spending on elections to
> fund single payer initiatives. Not really quite enough since
> initiatives are hellishly expensive, but let's say we run campaigns
> in a few states.
Initiatives aren't exactly cheap, but the campaign in Ohio shouldn't cost $40 million (it ain't California). Far from it. You need probably about 150,000 signatures to get 97,000 valid signatures and to put the SPAN petition on the ballot. A signature costs just about a dollar if you pay for it, but signatures are already getting collected by volunteers, so you don't have to pay for every last one of them. Pay for half of them. You wanna run some ads, organize rallies, canvass some working-class suburbs strategically, etc. How much? Let's say $5 million. You can make it cheaper if you motivate union members, retirees, students, etc. to volunteer. In any event, there should be plenty of money left for all worthy (and not so worthy) Democrats (and Republicans) unions care to support.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>