How Bernie's small donation campaign funding model is lining the pockets of credit card companies

[beastie boy]

Low-dollar, repeat contributions are a great talking point for campaigns. They’ve also resulted in a massive financial windfall for credit card processors (to the tune of millions of dollars).

When you give a dollar to a political campaign using your credit card, a portion of that money is paid to a range of companies—the bank that issues a donor’s credit card, the campaign’s bank, the credit card company, etc.—and is generally taken as a percentage of the donation, plus a fixed amount per transaction. Even ActBlue, which advertises a flat fee of 3.95 percent, gets charged a per-transaction fee behind the scenes, though the organization would not give exact amounts.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/25/small-dollar-online-donors-politics-credit-card-processing-072949

Even if Bernie is not aware of this, which I find hard to believe, at the very least this shows the ignorance, if not the hypocrisy, of bashing alternative methods of campaign funding.

[Cha]

1. So much Irony.

[Kurt V.]

27. Doesn't this apply to all campaigns then.

[Me.]

34. Isn't That The Truth

verite and transparency seems to be coming to the forefront more and more these days.

[Cha]

43. To Transparency!

[Blue_true]

36. Cha, real life is an irony cake.

Some prefer to live in a fantasyland and real life simply act on them. People who were running to the moral high ground got their supporters' legs caught in a bear trap.

[LanternWaste]

2. He's fixing a hole on one side of the boat by removing wood from the other side.

Three Card Monte is still an effective trick.

[TidalWave46]

3. Politico is trash. NT

[pnwmom]

25. This is a good article and Politico is a mainstream publication, not trash. nt

[TidalWave46]

39. I disagree.

Clickbait headlines where the content often doesn’t match. That’s just to start.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

4. They are all making the cc companies rich.

Too bad for everyone else Bernie is getting the most donations. Now it’s a bad thing?

Bernie contributed 2.3 million the other candidates contributed 7 million.

Bernie Sanders. 2,338,693.12
Elizabeth Warren 1,749,137.93
Pete Buttigieg 1,732,924.26
Kamala Harris 1,150,166.53
Joe Biden 1,061,699.44
Donald Trump 1,003,793.81
Source: Newsy analysis of FEC data

Here’s a clue. These campaigns are making a lot of people rich. CC companies, newspapers, Twitter, Facebook, network tv, cable tv, radio stations, ad buyers, convention halls, restaurants, charter bus and plane companies, rental car companies, sign makers, wacky inflatable waving arm sign makers and tshirt makers.

And, for some, canapés distributors.


I’d rather my money pay for transaction services than have the bundlers swarming my candidates. Or worse yet, candidates advertising special access for big donors.

[beastie boy]

6. By all means, choose your poison.

It's up to you who you choose to part with your money for, credit card companies or bundlers. Just don't pass judgements on others while you are at it. Everybody has their own 'drathers.

[brooklynite]

8. I've never given my money through bundles...

Just send it straight to the campaign or the candidate.

[beastie boy]

9. There you go!

You would think it's simple enough for Bernie's campaign to inform the donors and stop showering credit card companies with millions in fees. Or just drop the $27 dollar contribution schtick for the same reason.

But I suspect racking up the number of donors, regardless of methods, is a more desirable (and calculated) goal for Bernie's campaign than sticking with principles.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

19. Bernie raised twice as much money as your candidate.

And his reported fees are roughly twice as much.

What was the issue again?

There’s more to “costs” to working people than what you see in the credit card fees - especially when you figure the costs to us in access politics.


People are far more likely to spend more money and more often when they have easy access to credit card transactions. Anyone who runs a business knows this. McDonald’s knows this, your local convenience store knows this, contractors know this (that’s my business and point of sale credit card processing is a big deal now) and your local craft show people know this.

It’s a documented fact.

This line of attack is about as Rovian as it gets. Attack a strength - small dollar non-maxed out multi trip donors who can dig in their pockets throughout a campaign versus some candidates who max out their donors and run out of funds late in the game.

99% of Bernie’s donors can keep giving and over a hundred thousand people are signed up for auto deductions. That’s fantastic.

[Kurt V.]

28. +1

[beastie boy]

30. Actually, the ratio of money raised to transaction fees paid favors Biden by almost 50%

That means that Biden's campaign is almost 50% less generous to the bankers than Bernie's campaign. That translates into a lot of $27 bills!

If this is not an issue for you, that's OK. But it doesn't change the math. Just take it easy on the millionaire and billionaire rhetoric if you don't want to be challenged on it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

32. Biden paid 45% of What Bernie paid.

Biden raised 50% of what Bernie raised.

Bernie has way more donors and donations. Maybe Bernie is getting a better deal

[ChubbyStar]

10. Ugg that would be druthers

drathers is not a word. Keep trying!

[beastie boy]

13. Thanks! Are you available for English lessons?

I would be disappointed if you are not.

[ChubbyStar]

14. Sorry no

I would suggest night school. Good luck!

[beastie boy]

15. I am disappointed. Can I at least count on you to correct the grammar in my posts on DU?

I work the night shift.

[OilemFirchen]

40. Ohhh... THAT's why the Canaps Distributors Union endorsed Biden.

Buncha white-tailed snooty hundredaires.

Boycott Big Shrimp!

[betsuni]

5. K&R

[aikoaiko]

7. Weird that they are targeting Bernie and Elizabeth. Totally weird.

Moving money always leads to benefits to banks and finance companies.

Is this a new thing to some people.



For the record, Bernie and Elizabeth are not trying to reduce profits -- they like to tax those profits more progressively.

[beastie boy]

11. "Moving money always leads to benefits to banks" And moving money $27 at a time benefits them

incrementally. That's the whole point. Bernie is advocating a marketing trick at the expense of his donors and to the benefit of the banks and finance companies. Something that is entirely unnecessary except to create the perception of small donor support.

And I am totally perplexed about how Elizabeth found her way into this thread.

[aikoaiko]

12. "And I am totally perplexed about how Elizabeth found her way into this thread."

Did you not read your article. They dragged her into the smear as well.

It's not a marketing trick and donors understand the fees.

I've donated to Bernie -- its a transparent process.

[beastie boy]

18. Didn't want to go there, but yeah, that's a serious faux pas on Warren's part too.

Of all the people who know a thing or two about credit card companies.

But tell me, when you donated to Bernie, were you really aware that literally millions of dollars of your contributions go to feed millionaires and billionaires? And that's OK with you?

[Voltaire2]

22. write a freaking check if credit card fees bother you.

I'm sorry of your candidate is not doing well with small donor funding, but the attack in the op is total nonsense.

[beastie boy]

26. Great idea! As a Biden supporter I refuse to contribute to the financial elites.

And don't be mad, my candidate is doing rather well without giving millions of raised money to the bankers.

[aikoaiko]

23. I use credit cards for just about every purchase -- I know there are CC fees and where they go.

I knew the same things about my credit card use when I donated to HRC, too.

Again, the issue isn't about companies making profits -- its about proper taxation

[Doremus]

46. Well I guess we should all cut up our credit and debit cards and never use them again.

After all, the fees are enriching somebody.

And that statement makes as much sense as the article linked above.

[Gothmog]

16. I love ACTBLUE

Actblue is the mechanism that helps small dollar fundraising works. There is a commission charged to the candidate out of each payment made by means of Actblue. That fee does not necessarily cover all of Actblue's costs and so I will tip from time to time.

[Blue_true]

37. I do a similar approach through ActBlue. nt

[Gothmog]

41. I like giving candidates checks so that they do not have to pay the ActBlue fees

[demmiblue]

20. Lame criticism. n/t

[Voltaire2]

21. Every candidate since Obama's team set the model has been relying on repeat credit card donations.

So what exactly is the point of this article?

[beastie boy]

24. The point is the sheer amount of transaction fees that goes with small donations.

While Bernie doesn't miss an opportunity to brag about the number of individual donations, he doesn't seem to mind that with this number comes the disproportionate service fees that go straight into the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. It's the irony of Bernie's campaign talking point: he claims success with small donations and conceals the fact that his success funds the credit card companies to the tune of millions of dollars from campaign contributions.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

29. And your candidate funds the credit card companies about half as much Because he raised half as much

[beastie boy]

31. Nope. See #30.

[zipplewrath]

33. this is amazingly lame criticism.

Every campaign suffers from this issue. The GOP is struggling to keep up with the political effect of Act Blue. The campaign is appealing to a demographic that has demonstrated they don't mind paying the banks for extreme convenience and pay fees on just about everything they do from buying groceries to having restaurant food delivered. This criticism is basically "he didn't fix everything all at once so he's a hypocrite". There are two candidates at least that would heavily regulate the banking industry and one of them is Bernie. God knows Biden is probably the LEAST likely, considering his track record on everything from bankruptcy to corporate governance is plain to see. (And understandable considering he comes from Delaware.)

There's plenty of valid criticisms about Bernie. One doesn't need to create this kind of false issue.

[aidbo]

35. Alternative means of campaign financing is a funny way to say super PAC.

[Voltaire2]

44. !

[Hassin Bin Sober]

45. Those super PACs don't cost us anything.

Except sweetheart deals for the pharmaceutical industry, right wing healthcare plans, bloated military budgets, all time low corporate tax rates, and tax cuts for the super wealthy.

Other than that, super PACs are FREE!

[TreasonousBastard]

38. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this is a problem...

We are increasingly paying for smaller things with cards and phones or whatever. Personally, I'm not sure I care whether the coffee I just paid 2 bucks for enriches the card company by 8 cents or 12 cents depending on whether I paid by debit or credit or prepaid.

I paid the same 2 bucks, and don't care how it is apportioned.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

42. Because teh Bernie!

[aidbo]

47. Pinky was the smart one.