Email received just now:
Suppose that I do send in the requested $60. Kamala Harris has thus far raised $1.4 billion from her billionaire supporters. Will the $60 additional actually change what they can do over the next four days? How? Or is there some other reason for trying to convert me into a financial supporter at the peasant level?
The above email came two hours after a request for $47:
We need everyone, honestly. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for an expensive final push.
$47 to help get voters to the polls — voters we need to win.
$47 to make sure Trump never returns to the White House.
$47 one last time before the election. For Vice President Harris. For our democracy.
(They say “honestly”. Does that mean that previous statements from Harris and/or Walz were dishonest? Also, “our democracy” is at stake. Is that a message for the truly passionate anti-Trumpers to spend $47 on ammunition?)
At 5:23 pm today:
“our very democracy is at stake”! Where is a Latter-day Thomas Matthew Crooks to save our very democracy?
There were quite a few more today. My favorite has a subject line of “Your neighbors in Cambridge are counting on you!” (the direct mail hucksters have figured out that we moved to Florida; why couldn’t the political machines?)
At 12:14 pm, the price of virtue had fallen to just $1: “That is the donation we’re asking you to make directly to Kamala Harris’s campaign for president today. Yes, we’re lowering our ask to just $1 in the hopes you’ll chip in for the first time.”
So… with just a few days to go before what used to be considered the “big day” (before mail-in ballots and early voting) why does a $1 donation help? Why does a $60 donation help? Is the idea to build habitual donors so that money can be spent on the 2026 election?
(I can’t show any comparable examples from the Trump-Vance campaign because either they aren’t emailing out similar appeals or their computers agree with Harris-Walz’s that I am a Massachusetts progressive Democrat.)
I get one of these roughly every hour (24 per day), ever since I donated to Ron DeSimp. I also get messages from Tim Sheehy, Eric Hovde, Bernie Moreno and Hung Cao.
Stephen
ALERT FROM DONALD TRUMP
This shirt is just $20.24
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.
CONFIRM ORDER
Trump is doing it too.
The same question, then… Why? Especially the $1 ask. Are people more likely to remember to vote if they’ve donated even 1 cent or 1 Bidie? Or is to build a database for the future so that they can keep track of who is a potential supporter, current mailing addresses for supporters, etc.? I don’t see how $1 donated today makes a difference for an election in which half the people have already voted and in which the last votes will be cast on Tuesday evening.
Forgot to switch party affiliation when you moved from Maskachusetts? 😏
C’mon Phil, we’ve moved on to chasing squirrels!
Ted: No need to switch allegiance. There are plenty of Democrats right here in our neighborhood and in Palm Beach County generally. Democrats manage elections here (supervised by Democrat https://www.wendyforsoe.com/meet-wendy/ ). During the mini-Nakba of 2022, in which dictator Ron DeSantis was reelected by a landslide, Palm Beach County was only +3 for DeSantis. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-florida-governor.html
I’d like to know what these funds can be used for.
Post-election legal work?
If Kamala wins by any margin (large or small), I’m expecting a torrent of false claims and conspiracy theories that tie up courts for weeks or months.
Would not be surprised if this goes to the Supreme Court.
David: Keep in mind that the $1 Kamala Harris asked me to donate will pay for only about 1 second of a Big Law partner’s time.
I’m tempted, nonetheless.
I want to be sure Jill Stein has all she needs.
Don’t want to see her cheated out of another near victory.
After all, the Green Party doesn’t have any seats in the house, senate, or any state office. Wouldn’t the presidency be a great place to start?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States
Does that mean that previous statements from Harris and/or Walz were dishonest? Yes!