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Sanders Within Striking Distance of Record With 1 MILLION GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS
“......When you have one family spending more money than either the two major political parties, I think it is an example of what the Pope is talking about when he says money rules,” he said. “Money does rule, and that is why, in my view, we have got to overturn [the 2010 Supreme Court ruling] Citizens United and in fact move to public funding of elections so the wealthy and the powerful will not be able to buy elections......”
In coming days, Bernie Sanders is hoping to achieve a political milestone by showing the political world, from America’s grassroots to party bosses and pundits in Washington, that he has more than 1 million donations to his 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders sent out the word Wednesday morning in an e-mail blast saying he was within striking distance of the symbolic threshold of 1 million campaign contributors—who typically have given well under $100—and urging supporters to lift him across that line.
“We have a chance to make history,” his e-mail blast began, saying his insurgent campaign would be reporting its fundraising progress next week to the Federal Election Commission. “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.”
Without getting too far ahead of the news, there is a strong likelihood Sanders will reach that threshold, because his supporters have become the wild card in the Democratic Party’s nominating contest. Last week, he raised more than $1 million after a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton launched an attack ad smearing his socialist philosophy.
“Having more than 1 million contributions would be absolutely, totally historic this early in an election,” Sanders said. “In the 2008 race, with all of his grassroots momentum and enthusiasm in his incredible campaign, President Obama did not reach more than 1 million contributions until after he won the Iowa caucuses.”
The political media, Sanders said, takes fundraising deadlines seriously—but not always for the right reasons. They typically equate having the biggest war chest with being the most popular or viable candidate—and the reverse. But they generally do not focus on the characteristics of the nation’s elite political donor class, which for the most part share a pro-corporate economic agenda but differ on social issues. Sanders wants to underscore that his campaign is the grassroots revolution America has been waiting for—a people-funded movement championing greater dignity and fairness for the middle- and working-classes, and for America’s poor.
“We’ll see just how many Wall Street execs contributed how many millions of dollars to prop up the corrupt system that helps them get rich,” he said. “What they’re not counting on is our political revolution. Let’s show that the number of people and the number of contributions people make is just as important as the money raised from the billionaire class.”
cont'
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/sanders-within-striking-distance-record-1-million-grassroots-campaign-contributors
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