I have been waiting until a slow day so this would stay up longer, but it occurs to me that it also has the downside of being a slow day so nobody will see it anyway. Oh well, it will be forever enshrined in the archives, and I can always whore it later if the subject comes up. And, I'm not really sure it's even technically feasible and/or legal. ^_^
I had this idea shortly after the Wisconsin primary, long after any hope was lost for a Dean presidency in 2004. Thinking about the gains made by web based fundraising this past cycle, I wondered what elements of the sucessful Dean funding strategy could be applied to all other dems. Specifically, the way that DFA somehow got raising money online to be interesting content that itself drew people to the site.
much, much more...
Since then, orgs like
ActBlue have come into existance, and have provided a good starting point for the sort of site that has a "one-stop-shop" for democratic donation that also streamlines cash flow to the campaigns so they don't necessarily need to worry about the technical aspects of secure credit card transactions (this could be especially important for "dog catcher" type races, where budgets and staffs are shoe string at best). ActBlue seemed limited to big races, but the model could just as easily be used for local ones as well. However, while the ActBlue model has the donation part down, it doesn't really provide content or community to draw and keep people on the site (and thus encourage them to give more via "competition" and peer pressure).
Another element that the "pure" donation conduit site does not address is the case where the individual campaign needs more money now that can't be immediately met with donations alone. In this case, they get a bank loan (easy if you are wealthy like Kerry and have assets, but harder for younger or less affluent candidates). For small time races, this can be problematic and expensive and put the candidates even more in the pockets of big donors to help themselves dig out of debt after the race.
So, here's the proposal. Maybe it's legal, maybe not - I'll trust the many human-years of legal experience on dKos to let me know.
We form a dKos Credit Union.
Half ActBlue, half dKos, half blogforamerica when the bat was up, half credit union. While my math skills obviously preclude me being on the board, you get the idea.
So here's the pitch: we can use dKos or some other lefty blog with an active community as the springboard for membership in forming a credit union. Members deposit money (even better if we can get some high rollers involved to give us a mighty big seed indeed). A portion of every "deposit" to the CU goes to a PAC running in parallel with the CU. From this seed, we can loan money to deserving dem candidates (also members, obviously) with very reasonable interest rates and flexible collateral rules.
In parallel, candidates can send in bio's and position papers and whatnot and apply for endorsement by the ODCU (online dem credit union). The community would decide who to endorse by how much money is given to each candidate in this portion of the race, if at all, from your CU account. Once the most popular are chosen, they can recieve ODCU PAC money (if they want it) and like the dKos or DFA dozen, they could be the focus of the ODCU's fundraising efforts for the general non-CU populace, being like ActBlue.
This provides community, as people argue and debate the relative merits or drawbacks of candidates, "contest" and peer pressure, as people rah rah their favorites and try to drive them up the rankings, available liquidity for dem candidates that have easier terms than are available from the commercial banking system, and a one-stop-shop for all dem candidates regardless of the office pursued.
Like all ideas, if this one passes the legal test, the first response from anyone would be
Sounds Great! Go do it!
Unfortunately, I have no idea where to start or even how to start. Suggestions? If not, take the poll!
