Ten dollars and a whole lotta love!
Nov 30th, 2003 by jimmoore
Judy, greeter and receptionist extraordinaire at Howard Dean’s HQ in Burlington, Vermont
Ten dollars and a whole lotta love!
The trouble with our political process is that we have not made a national
priority of improving it. Few citizens vote. Fewer
volunteer in campaigns. We are shocked to learn that our
voting technology is vulnerable to fraud, but few of us have worked to
improve election processes. Traditional politicians have not
sought to change the process, because in general their own reelection
campaigns go very well. The statistics tell the story: almost
every member of the US Senate and House of Representatives is
re-elected as long as he or she continues to run. Incumbency plus
apathy equals reelection. And no one speaks for the candidates
who have not yet run—for the campaigns unborn.
Yet this year there is one campaign that is focused on improving the
process of democracy. Not surprisingly, it is a campaign led by
an outsider. Howard Dean’s reform campaign starts with the money.
Most Americans understand the role of money in politics. Typical political
campaigns are funded by special interest organizations and by
ultra-wealthy individuals. Part of the reason that most other people
don’t give money to campaigns is that they know they are not in either
of these groups, and they don’t see how their help matters.
Howard Dean has built a campaign on small donations from many people,
rather than large donations from a few. This has changed the
meaning of “political donor” for many people. It has also
established the character of the campaign, because it allows Howard
Dean to be more outspoken and direct on issues of broad concern to
people, such as health care and foreign policy. This
“people-powered” approach has done very well, and Howard Dean is now
the leading Democratic candidate.
To win the presidency, however, the Howard Dean campaign must broaden and
deepen participation. Millions must be engaged. Two million
people giving $100 each will give the Howard Dean campaign enough money to
fight George Bush’s $200 million barrage of attack ads.
But twenty million people giving $10 each would make a more powerful
statement for change. Twenty million people joining hands to
support a candidate for president would be something to behold!
By the way, both AOL
and Yahoo have these sorts of numbers online. In an Internet age
a million people could join in a day.
What counts is not how much you give, but that you take
the step, that you be active. What counts is
the personal commitment you make by putting in your name and credit card number
and clicking “send”: “I want
change. I want to join with my neighbors who are
swinging the bat.”
Some of my friends call this initiative “Ten dollars and change” to
emphasize that we can change our country if enough of us get
involved. I prefer “ten dollars and a whole lotta love!” because
this initiative is not about the money. It’s about the love.
PS: Last summer Lucas Welch, who worked for me at Harvard, came up with
the concept on which “Ten dollars and a whole lotta love” is
based. Lucas considered doing an online campaign to support his Solis
NGO which is bringing together students across the Middle East for
online dialogue and exchange. Lucas is currently in Israel
and Palestine pioneering the Solis project.
The concept of a ten dollar donation for the Dean campaign probably originated with Hal Roberts of the Berkman Center,
during a four-hour discussion he and I had while driving to Dean
headquarters in Vermont two months ago. We subsequently have had
many discusssions with other Dean supporters about the concept.