One of this biggest factors for the past decade of GOP wins has been their fundraising and GOTV (get out the vote) campaign, which I will have more on later. These two factors combined have dealt lethal blows to the Democrats and the Democrats have not been able to counter them, until now.
This year has been a fundraising landslide for Democrats. More big time businesses are donating to the Democrats and they have been catching up to the Republican fundraising machine. Today’s Washington Post even talks about the sudden “surge” in Democrat fundraising:
Democratic fundraising for the midterm elections is ending with a surge.
In September, the Democratic campaign committees for the House and the Senate outraised their counterpart Republican committees, reversing historical trends.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $14.4 million and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee collected $13.6 million last month, they said. In contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee raised $12 million and the National Republican Senatorial Committee collected $5.2 million.
The Republican National Committee, however, continued to outpace the Democratic National Committee. In September, the RNC raised $13.1 million and reported total receipts of $14.3 million, while the DNC said it collected $5.6 million.
The GOP committees maintained an overall advantage of about $10 million in funds available to be spent. At the end of September, the Democratic committees had $67.3 million on hand; the Republican committees had $77.4 million.
While the Republicans still have the upper hand in fundraising, the gap is closing. What is amazing is that with the Republicans still outspending the Democrats, the Republicans are facing a certain defeat in November.
Imagine how big the land slide would be for Democrats if we had publicly financed campaigns that made sure the financial playing field was equal for all candidates? This is one of the reasons we need Democrats to gain control – it would give us a better chance of getting campaign finance reform passed through, something desperatley needed in this country. Our democracy has turned into an auction. Big business has the most influence in Washington, because they have the deep pocketbooks that can support campaigns. When it costs tens of millions of dollars to just run for a House seat, we have a serious problem.
This past week Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars and Down with Tyranny ran a campaign on their join ActBlue page (Blue America). Together they were able to raise close to $100,000 in just 2 days by urging readers to donate $5 dollars. This was a phenomenal feat and they should be highly commended and thanked for what they did.
While their actions are great, there is also something upsetting about it. While getting email updates on how much was raised, I was watching Lou Dobbs’ special on “War on the Middle Class”. He was highlighting a family who has had to declare bankruptcy because their child had heart problems and they reached the cap on their insurance. There is something seriously wrong in this nation when we have to put more money into getting leaders then we do into the well being of our own citizens. This was not a poor family. The husband was a licensed carpenter making over $50,000 a year. That is a salary which most of middle America only wishes to see. This also shows how our nations priorities are backwards, but the only way to fix them is to get a party in power who will work to fix them.
When the Democrats take control first of the year, I hope they will listen to America and work to repair the problems with our democracy. The fix is not simple and can not happen over night, but a long term plan should go into affect. We must work to get our campaign financing under control and television/radio stations must start supplying candidates with a set number of ad times equally. It is part of their obligation to broadcast on public airwaves. Financing for campaigns must also come from a tax payer fund. While this will lead to a slight increase in taxes, it will save in the long run. If we would have already had this in place, Jack Abramoff would not be a key factor in corruption. Money would not be thrown at politicians for votes. The key ingredient to corruption in D.C. would be gone.