I realize this has been posted by others here on dKos before, but as it's our event, I'll take the opportunity (and my daily diary) to plug it here myself. Four days ago,
Draft Gore 2008 PAC kicked off our first fundraising event - however, rather than asking for big dollars from a few well-heeled Dems, we seek to show that an Al Gore candidacy has a breadth of support throughout the grass- and netroots unsurpassed by other leadership PACs.
So in order to have as many people counted as possible by our next FEC quarterly filing due on July 15th (closing date, June 30th), we're asking for Gore supporters to contribute $5.
Why five dollars? Here's our original post over on DraftGore2008.org:
In 1996, the voters of Maine took the issue of public financing of state elections into our own hands and passed, by "citizen's initiative" the nation's first "Clean Elections" law. Beginning in 2000, candidates for State House, Senate and Governor could obtain public funding of their campaigns by collecting a pre-determined number of "qualifying" contributions of $5 each from registered voters. For the House, the number is 50; for the Senate, it's 150; and for the governor's office, 2500. The reasoning behind qualifying contributions was simple: It's easy to say you support a candidate running for office, but putting money, no matter how small an amount, behind those words increases the level of commitment and support. The specific numbers are meant to indicate one's financial support goes beyond a small circle of friends, depending upon the size of the expected constituency.
Today, we kick off the formal formation of the Draft Gore 2008 PAC. I happen to be from Maine, and overwhelmingly support the concept of public financing of political campaigns. So, from June 1st through June 30th, when the second fiscal quarter closes for FEC-registered candidates and PACs, DG08 asks Gore supporters to vote with their wallets: While total fundraising amounts are important, our initial goal for our first reporting quarter is the number of supporters we can point to as wholeheartedly supporting Gore, whatever your financial position in life. Can we reach a goal of a hundred, or a thousand, or five thousand individuals within the grass- and net-roots willing to send the message that Gore is the most qualified candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008? We believe we can.
As of this morning, we've had 294 contributors, totaling a little over $4200. We have yet to send out a press release or widely broadcast the event, as our first day, a link from John Amato at Crooks and Liars took down our server (we're running on an Open Source Drupal platform which is resource hungry.) We've done some Drupal reconfiguring, and hope to see if we'll withstand another onslaught once we begin to actively push the drive this week.
All contributions will be used to develop and maintain an inclusive, populist organization dedicated to draft Al Gore as the Democratic nominee for President in 2008 and to persuade the American people to elect Al Gore as the next President of the United States. DG08 will focus a grassroots, distributed campaign strategy on early primary and caucus states to send delegates committed to Gore to the 2008 Democratic convention. We'll do this through a combination of a small number of paid field organizers in key early primary and caucus states and committed volunteers from throughout the country, both on the internet and among the on the ground activists. Currently, the leadership PACs of other Democratic nominee hopefuls employ over 150 staff members, both in Washington and in the states. We don't expect we'll compete one for one, but as we'll be investing in human resources, not TV ads or Inside-the-Beltway consultants, our fewer dollars will go much further.
Our current goal is 2008 $5 contributors by June 30th, which would surpassed the total number of $200+ contributors of all the other leadership PACs from the first quarter combined. Please help us reach that goal, and let Al Gore know that we're working to build an organization of the people, for the people, ready for him to assume a leadership role when he's willing and able.
(Note: I won't be able to respond too much to this post today, as we're on the way to Iowa to officially kick off our DG08 campaign later this month. If we build it, he will run! But our satellite will be up and running by this evening, and I'll then be able to address any outstanding questions.)