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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDemocrats Are Desperate for Bernie Sanders' Email List
As the Democratic party struggles to regain its footing following its disastrous November election, one vestige of the 2016 campaign has taken on much importance: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' email list. Sanders, who raised $218 million online from a record 2.8 million donors, rewrote the rules of email fundraising during his campaign by relentlessly courting small-dollar contributors. For many of those donors, Sanders was the first Democratic presidential candidate they had supported—or the first politician they had ever helped.
In an interview with the Huffington Post in December, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, a front-runner in the election for Democratic National Committee chair, said he wants "to learn from Senator Sanders about how he did it." At a DNC chair debate in January, another candidate, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), whom Sanders has endorsed for the DNC job and who is widely seen as someone who can heal the party's Sanders–Clinton divisions, pledged to try to obtain the email list for the party if he wins. "We're gonna call on everybody to give all the resources they have," Ellison said. "We're in an emergency situation."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/democrats-desperate-bernie-sanders-email-list
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riversedge
(80,802 posts)
ismnotwasm
(42,674 posts)I don't disagree with the conclusion that Democrats should build their own list. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure they have. Just don't see the "desperation" implied
bravenak
(34,648 posts)
This is an agenda looking for a story and a headline.
KPN
(17,376 posts)
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Contrary to the wrongly stated opinion in the article, such lists are not easy to build.
Despite the fact that I am on the email lists of many progressive organizations and groups (from SPLC and VoteVets to human rights organizations and environmental organizations), and despite the fact that I receive emails from progressive Congresspeople to whom I've never donated (e.g., Jeff Merkeley, ex-sen Russ Feingold, Elizabeth Warren, Patrick Leahy, etc. etc.), I was never on Bernie Sanders' list. He didn't reach out to me. Truth be told, I was never on Hillary Clinton's list either, despite the fact that somehow I'd been receiving emails (mostly unread) from the Clinton Foundation for years. (Which I suppose proves there was no collusion between the campaign and the Foundation). Once I made a campaign donation, I did begin to receive emails. That's how you get on these lists. I also receive scads of emails from party groups to whom I've donated in the past: DCCC, DSCC, etc.
These young people whose contacts the DNC would like to have are only there because, for the first time in most cases, they donated to a campaign. They've never participated in the political process before (including advocacy groups) or in the Democratic Party. Though heaven knows why he would be guarding it so closely: he doesn't need it to continue his senator-for-life status in tiny Vermont, he's too old to ever run again for the presidency, and--sorry folks, the Revolution is not coming from the Sanders quarters. Whatever immediate resistance is happening now is happening from all over: the most active participants I know in things like Indivisible (one person I know started a group that now has 900 people in his town) were Clinton supporters. Minority communities, who did not vote for Sanders, have also become active participants in the Resistance.
I don't know if Sanders is holding the list hostage as a bargaining tool in getting Keith Ellison in or not. But that aside, I find it odd, and just a little bit infuriating, that he is still out on the road and on the airwaves criticizing the Democratic Party vociferously, even though he continues to refuse to become a member of that Party, and yet will do nothing to expand its base or assist in outreach. It's his, all his—as the article states, "his precious." Remind you of anyone?
Hell, they even made him outreach poobah for the Senate, but he won't give up his list to allow the party with whom he nominally caucuses reach out to thousands of young people? This is vanity, this is unpatriotic, this is authoritarian.
ismnotwasm
(42,674 posts)It's more I dislike the "tone" of the article especially the part that says Keith Ellison will do everything he can to get the lists. ~If he gets the chair~I also simply can't imagine anyway to use the lists without a scream of "DNC cheating" from extreme partisans
This is anecdotal, but some of the young people Sanders fired up were the same young people who went on the women's march with me, who are protesting with me. When a young girl--surely not old enough to vote-- sang "Fight song" accapella, I almost lost it.
Kentonio
(4,377 posts)There's certainly a lot of back room politicking going on right now, and with the future of the party at stake it would be rash to jump to conclusions about things we don't know.
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)KPN
(17,376 posts)but will people respond in like kind to the Party? There are a lot of people who no longer give freely to the Party directly, but choose to contribute to specific candidates instead. I'm guessing a lot of people on Bernie's list are already on the Democratic Party list.
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)our way of life as we speak. Yet, Sanders refuses to register as a Democrat or help the Party in any way. With friends like this, who need enemies ? I, personally, am totally done with this self promoting guy.
KPN
(17,376 posts)the Party in any way.
You were already done with Bernie long ago. Faux news.
The email list is meaningless in and of itself. The Party could have it in hand today and it wouldn't mean anything in itself. The Party has to earn small donor contributions -- takes more than just having an email list.
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)Perez will be the next DNC chair.
KPN
(17,376 posts)We shall see. Ellison's candidacy isn't just about Bernie, but since Bernie supports him, I can see how you would see it the way you do.
KPN
(17,376 posts)People didn't make small donor contributions because they were on an email list. They all had to reach out in response to something they saw or heard from or about Bernie.
The Party will do fine building its own list if it takes on the mindset of those who have joined Bernie's "revolution". Whether it does that or not is still left to be seen. There are plenty of signals that look good; the biggest being Party leaders appear to be responding to the people who are protesting.
I, for one, am keeping my fingers crossed about that. I want to see this country turn back around ... soon.
radical noodle
(10,595 posts)Although not a Bernie fan because of the primary antics (I liked him before) I really don't imagine most of his donors will send money to the DNC or other Democrats. They were more like a cult in some ways. It was all Bernie all the time and if not Bernie, then they had little interest. The others are probably already getting mail from Democrats.
I gave Sanders my email address when I donated. It wasn't the other way around. Sanders didn't email me out of the blue asking for a donation. I don't give money to people who do that to me.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)"rewrote the rules of email fundraising during his campaign by relentlessly courting small-dollar contributors."
Really? 
uponit7771
(93,532 posts)It's not the list that is important: it's the message and reaching out consistently with that message. We (D Party) can do it -- if we try!
SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)It could reveal that many of his financial supporters were RW operatives.
Jakes Progress
(11,213 posts)uponit7771
(93,532 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,213 posts)why he wouldn't cheerfully share that list? He ran as a Democrat. I recently had a post hidden because it affronted Bernie and was told it was hidden because I defamed a Democrat. He seems to want it both ways.
Not very helpful. (At least not helpful to getting rid of trump. It may be helpful to Bernie himself though.)
logosoco
(3,211 posts)The folks the Democrats need to reach out to don't have money for political donations. Unless the emails are needed to spread the word and not ask for donations, I don't think Bernie's email lists really matter.
delisen
(7,365 posts)workers, new local level candidates. Bernie's message was so cynical regarding the party.
NoGoodNamesLeft
(2,056 posts)I used to live in Vermont and I loved Bernie. This goddamned election has left me wishing I'd never heard his name.
He is the past and people need to move on to the future.
Can we block terms so that I can just block his name? I really am THAT sick of seeing threads started about him.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)you can use to auto-trash terms here:
http://election.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1013&pid=2310
I suggest typing in "Bernie" and trash that term first, then typing in "Sanders" and trash that term separately.
seaglass
(8,185 posts)
LisaM
(29,633 posts)That kind of tells me everything I need to know.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)It isn't like I am not on Hillary's email list too. I would think that most of us are.
To me this just makes the people looking for this list seem stupid. They are admitting that they can't do what Bernie did. Can't understand how he did it and don't realize that they already have most of us anyways.
And people wonder how we keep losing ground.
Edit to add: I bet ActBlue has most of us too.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)An author completely ignoring '08 or an author making Sanders sound like an asshole by way of linguistic sleight of hand. Either way this seems very deceptive.
Else You Are Mad
(3,040 posts)If the DNC thinks that Sanders' email list will be as beneficial to them as it was for Bernie, they are delusional. Most of those who donated to Sanders -- right or wrong -- did so because they were not happy with the DNC establishment. Perez or Ellison could send out hundreds of emails to those on the list and they would receive only a small portion of the amount of money that Bernie did.
You cannot not buy a grassroots revolution, you need to form it from the ground up not from the top down. If the DNC wants to be successful and fundraise money from the Bernie list, they are better off sincerely campaigning on the platform of Bernie Sanders than sending meaningless emails.
Go Vols
(5,902 posts)
aikoaiko
(34,214 posts)Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing.
Iggo
(49,927 posts)
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)... I doubt that anyone's desire to have it actually rises to the level of being "desperate".
I'll bet that our organization has many skilled experts who know quite a lot about building and growing viable email lists from serious and reliable donors and/or volunteers.
I just hope that none of them are stupid enough to do something criminal in order to get their hands one data that doesn't belong to them.
Personally, I doubt the the Bernie organization will be willing to part with it just because someone asked nicely. In my opinion, someone within the org will want to use it as leverage, or a bargaining chip to get what they want, rather than for the greater good. (Interesting that it turns out this way because I was just "chatting" with someone who was highly critical of me for being loyal to the Democratic party, and suggested that my loyalty was at the expense of the "greater good" ... or something absurd like that. I wonder what this person's response would be to this?)
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)one would think the last election showed us that...bigtime..
Sanders/Warren would have thumped Trump because they have their own charisma..
SaschaHM
(2,897 posts)Not like we had an election or something to win...
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)... to discover what their priorities are. For others of us, it confirms many of the beliefs that we already had.
Iggo
(49,927 posts)
Hekate
(100,133 posts)Something tells me he owes the Party this much.
Let's see what happens.