Monday, September 29, 2008

Something Completely Different about Money

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

There's a lot I want to write about the bailout, the effects in Asia and Europe, and how the vote will turn out today. But until the financial systems completely collapse, I'd like to ask you to do something with YOUR money.

If we've learned nothing else from the financial crisis, it's that perception becomes reality. And that's true with a lot of things. So here's my perceptual plan, and I hope you'll join me.

In August, about 500,000 people donated money to the Obama campaign, bringing the total number of donors to about 2.5 million. Can you imagine the psychological affect of FIVE million people giving to the campaign? TEN?


I know, you've already given. Yup, me too. But maybe you know people who have not. Imagine if 10 people you know who haven't given to the campaign each give $5. And if each of them knew 10 people who haven't given who also give $5. And so on. My rudimentary math indicates that those donor numbers could rise A LOT (note that technical math term) in a quick period of time.

We know there are a lot of people who never donate to any campaign. We know that because there are more than 150 million registered voters. So potentially, you personally know one or two. I hope you'll think about it.


And because I can't get my mind off the bailout:






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Another poll, another effect/affect catastrophe.
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Karen Anne's avatar

Karen Anne · 858 weeks ago

I've noticed with other posts that have multiple polls in them that when I vote and then later return, only one of the polls shows the results, the others are in the please vote stage. So in order to see what the results are, you have to vote again. Dunno if it is counting the second votes or not.
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I agree about the incredible psychological impact of having 5 or 10 million donors. The Obama website has a tool that makes it very simple to ask your friends to give (http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/login/mai...I did a mini campaign, asking people to give $10 each. In one day, I raised over $600, and many of those people had not previously given. I encourage everyone to check out this tool and ask your friends and family to give. As a bonus, I had a lot of fun connecting with friends I hadn't talked with in a while.
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How about a plan to use money raised for campaigning as a bailout solution.
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1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
Karen Anne's avatar

Karen Anne · 858 weeks ago

Hope I got the zeros right. A drop in the bucket. Just handwaving, if Obama raised $50 million a month for 20 months, which I think is a considerable overestimate, that would be $1 billion. Multiply that by 4 for McCain, the DNC, and the RNC and you get $4 billion. I am sure they didn't raise that much.
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