Bernie's group in the Milford, NH Labor Day Parade
It’s been several weeks since my last diary on the Bernie 2016 New Hampshire campaign and the words that come to mind to describe this period are enthusiasm and momentum. This is true whether one looks at the public opinion polls or the developing organization on the ground. By this time Bernie’s rise to a statistically significant lead in several recent NH polls has become old news, but speaks volumes about his momentum. This growth is equally apparent in the formal campaign structure as this
time.com article reports.
In early August, Sanders had just four paid staff members in New Hampshire; the campaign now has 37. The campaign has five offices as of Monday, but by the end of the week, there will be eight offices where volunteers can come phone bank, learn canvassing tips and get organized.
As Bernie’s message spreads the enthusiasm here in NH continues to build. From the same Time article:
On Monday, he completed a whirlwind tour at the southern end of the state, beginning at an AFL-CIO labor breakfast in Manchester before heading to a parade in Milford forty minutes south. There, Sanders led hundreds of supporters, outnumbering Hillary Clinton’s cohort by several times…
But excitement and enthusiasm are not sufficient by themselves, and the ground game is going to be all important if Bernie is to win in NH, and go on to the party’s convention with enough delegates to win the nomination. While one can make a valid argument that the state is not demographically representative of the country as a whole, New Hampshire voters are a politically savvy and sophisticated bunch. So the election here will be an important test of whether the grassroots political revolution with all its enthusiasm, can also be effective in GOTV efforts in more diverse states and later primaries. For a look at the current ground game there’s more below the fold.
Our grassroots group, the Lake Sunapee Region for Bernie, held our first tabling/flyering event this past Saturday at the transfer station in Wilmot NH, population 1360. Some might question the location, but we were refused permission to set up in other locations like the post office or farmers market due to “policies” of non use for partisan political activity. In any event, the Town Dump as it used to be called, is the one place everyone needs to pass through every week or so in a rural area without curbside trash pick-up. As such it served the purpose of increasing visibility for our candidate and gave us the opportunity to hand out flyers, buttons, bumper stickers and other swag for the campaign.
Due to traffic safety reasons we were required to observe a substantial setback from the vehicle travel path for our canopy and tables. This required our potential audience to make a concerted effort to come to us, either by parking in front of our set-up or walking over to see us. Nevertheless we gave out over 50 flyers or packets of information and stickers, while easily twice that number of vehicles waved with a thumbs up, or beeped and yelled “go Bernie”. Many people who came to us actually refused the flyers so they could be given to others and simply wanted to thank us for being out there. And of course we had cookies, for the young and the not so young, snickerdoodles and chocolate chip, home made so that nobody could refuse. At the end of the day we did a back of the envelope calculation, to judge our success. We assumed each car or truck represented a family of 4 giving 340 vehicles, which in turn gave us a positive response rate around 44%, right where the current polling says it should be. Both the excitement and enthusiasm were right there too.
As a group we have spent a significant amount of time since the July 29th kick-off meetings in planning and organizing for this and other events to come. We have formed subcommittees responsible for writing letters to the editor of the local papers, some assigned to requesting permissions to organize tabling events in each community, and others charged with dealing with FEC regulations. We have conducted training on techniques for phone banking, from timing and first impressions to recovering a bad call. We drove to neighboring VT to meet with activists interested in volunteering to help with canvassing in NH, while reaching out to all our contacts and acquaintances to try and increase the number of volunteers in our group.
All of this activity has been done on our own initiative despite the fact that we are an early primary state, and have consistently made the effort to reach out to the official campaign. The truth of the matter is that they are having growing pains, and still catching up to the grassroots volunteer groups. So we urge those of you in later primary states looking to help, not to become discouraged. The campaign will need your energy and enthusiasm before this is over, but it may take them some time and you can best use that time by getting organized. Be fired up and ready to go, because we do not and will not have the financial resources and professional staff that the other campaigns will deploy. The election will depend on each of us getting involved and we need everyone’s talent, ardor, and time.
Finally, a word on relations with the Federal Elections Commission. A comment on a recent DKOS diary thread claimed that an unidentified donor “stuffed a c-note” in a jar at a tabling event. This my friends is a no no for several reasons dealing with elections law. First of all, political donations of $100 or more cannot be made in cash, but must be done by check or credit card. Secondly, donations should be made directly via donation envelopes from the campaign if cash or check, or better yet let them make contributions to the website: berniesanders.com.
This comment also hints at behavior that we have observed in some groups, which may or may not be legal, and can only harm the campaign. People who are accepting cash as a group have a requirement to keep track of donations including name, occupation, and employer of the donor. What’s more, by accepting donations or reselling Bernie stuff for donations, the group may alter its legal status and FEC reporting requirements, and the person acting as the treasurer of the group is subject to enforcement penalties if this happens. Besides the campaign will not even be able to accept a bundle of undocumented cash as a donation.
Our advice is to contact the FEC directly with questions after reading about “non-connected committees”, which is the category that groups collecting donations can fall into.
The Act requires political committees to register with the FEC. A non-connected committee becomes a political committee once its contributions or expenditures exceed $1,000 in a calendar year. 100.5(a). After the committee crosses that threshold, it must register within 10 days and periodically report all financial activities. 102.1(d). However, a non-connected committee may register and begin reporting before it exceeds the $1,000 threshold. 104.1(b)
As long as you stay below the $1,000 threshold you avoid the record keeping, bank accounts with Federal EIN, and filing requirements of both the FEC and IRS. The latter are extremely detailed and onerous. In addition, by exceeding the threshold you become a political committee which may not be able to work with Bernie’s campaign.
The Citizens Guide offers an excellent introduction to Federal elections law which all should read. For while the Koch Bros. spend a billion without effort, we must be smarter and put out more effort to spend a thousand, but that’s one of the reasons why we support Bernie. We can win this one because we are brighter and more motivated than they are. Until next time, in the Lake Sunapee Region we are feeling the Bern!!!