A fellow blogger sent me this link late last night and when I read it this morning, I must admit my amazement. Potential 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate Russ Feingold of Wisconsin has received 62% of his Progressive Patriots Fund (his PAC) donations from small donors, meaning folks giving $200 or less. That’s pretty damn impressive. It seems that Feingold is tapping into the vast people-powered progressive movement that has emerged online as well as offline across the country, a movement looking for change and candidates dedicated to bringing that change about while bringing positive leadership. While it isn’t the same size of a small-donor base as Hillary Clinton, for Feingold’s stature and past fundraising efforts as the humble senator from Wisconsin, this is a good showing.
Chris Bowers takes a look at the numbers and the corresponding < i>Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story here on MyDD. He poses the discussion as a question about public finance: use it during the primary, during the general, not at all, or during one or the other? It is an interesting question that is worth considering, especially considering this important fact:
“A candidate who uses public financing shouldn’t have any money problems during the early primaries when the nominee will be decided, nor should s/he have any problems after the convention when the second wave of public financing kicks in. The problems will arise between the period when the nominee is decided and the nominating convention. In 2008, that is a period that could last up to six months. A candidate using public financing may have to go dark for long stretches of time during those six months, and may have difficulty setting up staff in all relevant states.”
What do you think? Bowers has a poll up over at MyDD and the comments are worth reading. You can also leave your comments belows as well.
Oh, and if you’re curious, Thneed has some comments and discussion about Feingold and public financing here at the Iowa for Feingold blog, including some good discussion of bipartisan legislation Feingold is working on to salvage what’s left of the public financing system that was set up and hasn’t been substantially altered since it was created right after Watergate. Front-loading of the primary calendar is one of the biggest problems mentioned, so I think if the Democratic Party is looking seriously at revising the primary calendar to bring in diversity and change the typical selection procedures, so to me it seems that if they want to be taken seriously on a message of reform in the electoral and nominating process, they should tackle the issues public financing and what the party position on it will be.
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