Short answer: Do exactly what the Obama campaign is doing.
Yesterday's Mid-day thread had a quick link over to Marc Ambinder's blog at the Atlantic; Ambinder noted that the Obama campaign had raised $431,000 in a matter of hours with a direct appeal to their supporters. "Washington lobbyists have chosen their candidate and are determined to provide her with an advantage. But you can even up this contest." Now, I am an Obama supporter, so I was more than a little interested.
So I used the intertubes to do what this whole bloggysphere is all about.
I checked my email and sure enough, my Senator had written me a short note asking if I could help out with 25 bucks or so. And, welp, I did. Why on earth did I do that?? Dilford is not made out of money; I'm stiffing my NPR station this fund-drive (the worst jazz I have ever heard in my life...), I know that if I give it'll just encourage the campaign to ask for more, I've already put some time into the campaign and figured that just doing volunteer activities (canvassing, phone banks, etc.) would be more than enough. But that appeal hit me right between the eyes. It was a challenge to see if all the hours I've poured into my favorite sites (here, TPM, Hullabaloo, Sadly No, Media Matters, and so many, many more) over the last few years meant anything more than a tinker's fart. And yesterday afternoon, I was in the magic fiscal moment when I could rationally say, "Yep. I've got $25 that isn't needed somewhere else." Evidently, I wasn't the only one.
That $431,000 from yesterday afternoon has more than doubled to $950,000 as I write this. I'm stunned. I guess there have been a few other examples of candidates raising that amount in a short period of time (Kerry immediately after winning the nomination? Dean?), but this seems to be driven entirely by Obama supporters deciding, "No, we will NOT be the losers in any head-to-head contest against HRC." I have to confess that that was part of my motivation, so maybe I'm just projecting. But really, I heard or read no stories about "Obama campaign desperately seeking cash in losing fund-raising battle with Clinton." Reading the blogging over at the Obama site yesterday was inspiring and fun. People issuing matching challenges, first-time donaters like me, people who knew exactly how much they had left to give for the primary season. "Bob from Texas" and "Alice in South Carolina" and all coming up to the plate almost instantaneously to say "Here's my support." It reinforces my sense of what drives us Obama supporters- Now is the time. Barack Obama is the man.
This is a campaign of hundreds of thousands of people who look at the issues of electability, experience, etc. and agree that this is the right person for the challenges ahead of us. I know that one of the frequent criticisms of my Senator is that he's not doing the red-meat-routine enough (Daily Show last night had a hilarious mock-up of his "jabs" at HRC). But, by golly, I don't see that he needs to with this sort of response from his base.
I don't know when (or even if) he'll match that $2.1 million gap, but when/if he does, I will be quite interested to see how the traditional media, as well as the new guys and gals, cover the story.
Update: Just passed a million.