The Bernie Sanders grassroots juggernaut is about to make history - the campaign is in striking distance of the symbolic threshold of 1,000,000 million campaign contributions, mostly from people who typically give well under $100. This is a battle of David v. Goliath, with Sanders grassroots supporters taking on the political class in a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.
This is huge news! And to put in perspective how historic this is, candidate Barack Obama did not hit this magic number of 1,000,000 donations until after he won the Iowa caucuses in January of 2008!
The Sanders campaign first announce that they were closing in on 1,000,000 donations via email to supporters last Wednesday:
We have a chance to make history with potentially reaching 1 million online contributions to our campaign by next week's fundraising deadline. Please contribute today to help us try and reach this goal.
Something remarkable is happening. We are approaching a critical fundraising deadline next week, after which we will have to publicly report not just how much money our campaign has raised, but how many people have made a contribution to own a part of it.
This deadline gives our campaign the chance to make presidential election history. We may be able to say that our supporters have made 1 million contributions online to our campaign. It's a stretch to reach that goal. Yet I believe that it's possible to get there if we all come together.
Are you in to help us try?
If we can help Bernie reach this goal of 1,000,000 donations by September 30, 2015, it will blow this campaign wide open! Once announced in the press, it will gain widespread news coverage EVERYWHERE! It will also send a HUGE signal that Bernie's movement is built from the ground up - and that his supporters on the ground have the enthusiams, stamina, and commitment to fund this campaign all the way to the Democratic National Convention this summer!!!
Use the link below to make a contribution today - give what you are able to give to help Bernie reach this historic goal of 1,000,000 donations!! Here is the link to use to make a contribution to Bernie's ActBlue page:
https://secure.actblue.com/...
HELP SPREAD THE MONEYBOMB!
Share this diary on Facebook, Tweet it, etc., to help raise more $$$ for Bernie!
GO BERNIE!!
6:42 AM PT: The power of Bernie's supporters on social media:
"In the meantime, Sanders’ posts are continuing to be shared by users who like his page, exposing their friends to him, who then may like his page, causing his popular posts to appear at the top of their news feeds, cementing their loyalty — and the cycle continues.
By leveraging his fans’ enthusiasm and engagement, Sanders is able to circumvent one of Clinton’s biggest strengths: her advertisement budget. Where other campaigns would pay Facebook thousands of dollars for a “suggested post” to appear on users’ timelines, Sanders’ fans are doing this for free. If this level of engagement keeps up, by the end of his campaign Sanders could wind up saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Money that the super PAC-disavowing candidate desperately needs."
http://www.salon.com/...
7:37 AM PT:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is running the most digitally effective campaign, followed closely by Republican Ben Carson and Democrat Hillary Clinton, a Silicon Valley web optimization company argues.
Sanders, who at 74 is the oldest of the major parties' prominent candidates, nevertheless is the tech-savviest when you factor in the number of analytics tools in use on the campaign's website; the number of social media tools embedded on the campaign's website; Twitter effectiveness (measured as number of followers divided by number of tweets as of Sept. 4); website load speed; website security, determined by SSL certification; and use of content delivery networks, according to Palo Alto-based Instart Logic.
http://www.mercurynews.com/...