The entrance fee to Ms Clinton's 'grassroots' conversation campaign is $1000 - $2700.

[brooklynite]

153. Do you want a serious answer? or is the purpose here just to vent....

(note - I get slammed for talking about my financial resources, but I only do it when there's context, and this is one of those instances).

First, some legalese. $2,700 is the maximum you can give for any Federal office Primary. $1,000 is a standard amount for a Presidential or Senate candidate event (lesser known Senate candidates might ask for $500; House races usually do $250).

These events are usually at someone's home or office; rarely they'll be at a rentable venue (costs more). They are usually 90 min-2 hours). There's usually wine/soda/seltzer and appetizers for everyone.

The distinction between pricing is in two flavors. An all-$2,700 event (the one I went to) will have fewer people (say 30-40) for more intimacy and more face-time (which, with a Presidential candidate is still very limited). A mixed price event will be 50-75 people and will usually include a "VIP session" -- the same exact event, but with the higher dollar people coming 30 min earlier.

Now, the obvious unasked question here is: why does it cost $1,000+ to get in? And the answer is, to be blunt, that it's not worth a campaign's time to ask for less. You can certainly do small dollar events, like any party, but it's a huge commitment of the candidate's free time for not a lot of return. Either you need to invite a lot of people (say 500) in which case 1) you need to rent a space, which is an additional cost (private homes can be contributed) and 2) it'll be impractical for attendees to ask questions or raise issues they're concerned about (I'm able to ask a question at almost every event I attend--when I was at Hillary's event, I asked about her plans for dealing with CU), or the financial return is going to be so low that the candidate would have better spent his/her time doing something else.

You're welcome to complain about this situation; but this is the real world where campaigns cost real dollars. Let's see what Sanders and Clinton report to the FEC at the end of June, and then we can judge if he'll have the resources he'll really need for a national campaign.