In a country ruled more through complacency than persuasion or coercion, MoveOn.org, the 3.3 million member progressive grass-roots group, continues to rattle the D.C. establishment by giving ordinary people the tools to get involved in politics.MoveOn's ability to bundle small campaign contributions from tens of thousands of rank-and-file progressives and challenge candidates backed by the full weight of the American corporatocracy is causing Washington's traditional power brokers to lose some sleep. Last year — a nonelection year — MoveOn's PAC raised over $9 million from 125,000 donors who threw in less than 50 bucks each on average. It's expected to spend $25 million on candidates and independent ad buys in a full-press attack on the Republican Congress this cycle.
[..]Of course, emails and petitions only go so far. The other piece of the organization is MoveOn.org Political Action, one of the largest PACS in the country and fast becoming one of the Democratic Party's most important sources of funds. The PAC is the real threat to the corporatocracy because it offers progressive candidates an alternative to dialing up the usual circle of big-fish donors, lobbyists and trade associations for campaign dollars.
That independent source of cash — a source that represented the interests of millions of ordinary progressives rather than the submissive DLC Democrats on K Street — is what prompted the Republican Swiftboating last year. It began shortly after they raised an eye-opening $800,000 for West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd in just 48 hours. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told RollCall that MoveOn "certainly [has] more money there than Howard Dean and the DNC." The campaign against MoveOn was an effort to frighten candidates away from accepting MoveOn's support. Read on…
That's the key. The netroots ARE working. MoveOn's efforts, like our Blue America campaign, is raising far more money for candidates that represent OUR values than the right wing thought we could. And that scares the Republican party.
So keep them scared. Check out our Blue America page and donate if you can to a key campaign.
Comments