Bernie has done something amazing. His fuck you to the moneybags

[cali]

is worth its weight in campaign gold. Bernie has proved that you don't need to dash for corporate cash, that you can compete with someone who has held more big $$$$ fundraisers than rallies. He has demonstrated that you don't have to suck up to Blankfein and Saban.

Does that model threaten the corporate moneybags who have kept a tight grip on the party this century? Well, duh. That one thing threatens their corrupt reign.


And yes, if Bernie got the nomination, he'd be financially competitive in the general. Hillary fans said he could never do it in the primary. He did.

[Live and Learn]

1. That he has. K&R nt

[merrily]

2. Sanders took in over $20 million in January (2016), all from Big Voter.

[winter is coming]

6. LOL. I don't think Bernie minds being in the pocket of Big Voter. n/t

[Art_from_Ark]

7. Well, I'm a "little voter",

but I don't mind being thought of as "Big Voter"

Go Bernie!

[merrily]

8. Better yet, I don't think Big Voter minds having a politician in its pocket--for a change.

[LiberalElite]

3. K&R nt

[PowerToThePeople]

4. I agree

But I am not sure this would work as well downticket. Public election financing is the answer we are looking for.

[cali]

5. Absolutely public financing.

[merrily]

9. I believe Canova, who is challenging DWS in Florida, is trying to run against her on money

from average donors. NH State Rep. Tim Smith, who has been working on Sanders' NH campaign is doing it. I'vve donated to both.

At some point, it's up to us if we donate to such people. The minimum donation on Act Blue is a dollar, after all. I've donated more than that, but I mention that because I think everyone can manage a dollar.

[cali]

10. Yeah, I think we're seeing the potential of a downticket

Bernie effect

[dreamnightwind]

11. I think it's how we proceed until we do get publicly financed elections

Candidates elected with corporate money aren't likely to go out of their way to get corporate money out of our system.

IMHO our greatest and most urgent challenge is to learn how to defeat big corporate money in elections with crowd-sourced campaigns.

While we work to do this, we can also work in every way possible (Rootstrikers, Wolf-PAC, Move To Amend, etc.) to get publicly funded elections. Until we do so, we don't really have a functional democracy.

But if we can establish that candidates accepting corporate money will sell out their constituents without blinking an eye (pretty much indisputable, but for some reason ths hasn't sufficiently crystallized in the minds of enough of the electorate), we will have a way to fight back, by stigmatizing candidates accepting corporate money and running crowd-sourced campaigns against them.

If you have a better way forward I'd love to hear it.

If Bernie wins, or even comes close, he will have proven the viability of this approach, which might be the most important aspect of his campaign.

All of the other issues we care about so much will be enabled if we can elect candidates who owe their allegiance to the people instead of to the oligarchy.

[dreamnightwind]

12. K & R, this is what it's all about

and we owe a huge debt to Bernie for his determination to make a serious run of it against the most well-funded campaign machine in history.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

13. I have $20 ready to go next time they lie about Sanders. I'm not alone in this. nt

[amborin]

14. It's Bernie or the Billionaire Class forever nt

[stillwaiting]

15. His campaign has also clearly demonstrated that truly left-wing/progressive policies

are viable in Battleground states.

In the two states that know Bernie the best, Bernie beats the Republican by a much larger margin than the pragmatic, centrist candidate.

Bernie's campaign has EXPLODED the lie that we have been continuously fed: That only conservative, pragmatic, Blue Dogs/DLC type candidates can win in many states. It is clearly false. And, we should take this to heart and primary pragmatic centrists in many places.

It would be much easier to build a progressive Democratic Party with Bernie as President of course. His Party Chair would no doubt work to recruit truly progressive Candidates, and we need to elect a President that will do that. We have one choice if that's what we want.