From August 22 to August 26, 2003 Howard Dean’s campaign for president challenged his supporters to match the funds George Bush was planning to raise.
George Bush raised $1,000,000 from 500 donors at an invitation only, $2,000 donation affair in Portland.
The Dean campaign raised $1,032,903.94, from 17,717 supporters with an average contribution of $58.30. 10,138 of these were first time contributors.
So what is so important about all this? Numbers.
We all know that elections are won with numbers. Or are they? Whoever gets the most votes wins - and to get the most votes in elections - candidates must do campaigns. Successful campaigns needs two major ingredients where numbers count, money and supporters.
Comparing Governor Dean and President Bush’s recent million dollar fund raising efforts, the dollars raised are about the same, but look at the difference in the number of supporters.
Prior to Election Day, November 2, 2004, there will be a series of primaries. As we know, primaries are held in the states prior to the party conventions in 2004. However, there are important primaries being held in 2003 and three have already been held.
Each quarter, the Federal Election Commission requires candidates to file their contributions. John Edwards won the first quarter primary and Howard Dean won the second quarter, with $7.6 million raised. He also had the highest number of contributors.
We are presently in the third quarter primary and will have one more to go this year. No candidate can successfully prepare to compete in an election without sufficient funds, so these primaries are very important. Best of all you can give as much as you like, as often as you like, just as long as you don’t exceed a total for all contributions of $2,000.
Moveon.org held the first on-line primary earlier this year. A total of 317,647 moveon.org members voted. This was more than all the votes cast in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries combined in 2000. Dean won moveon.org vote with a whopping 44% of the vote.
Moveon.org is planning to have another primary, open to members only. Moveon.org will endorse the candidate that gets over 50% of the votes. Membership is free, but does require advanced registration.
This is a powerful endorsement from an organization of approximately two million members.
The Dean campaign is reporting that as of today, (8/27/03) 333,009 people have signed up. Many have made contributions and are volunteering. Another 92,117 are signed up at meetup.com as of this morning.
There will be 538 Electoral College votes cast for the next President of the United States, 270 are needed to win. The number of Electoral College votes is the sum of number of Representatives and the Number of Senators is the United State Congress. That is what all we are all about - wining 270 or more Electoral College votes.
We as individuals do matter in all this! We are the numbers! We are the power!
The meetup.com groups meet the first Wednesday of each month at 7 PM. Howard Dean volunteers are a wonderful active group!
Ralph Wheeler
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