Senator Bernie Sanders gave Secretary Clinton a run for her money as he challenged her throughout the Presidential primary for the Democratic nomination. He did so with much success coming from his ability to raise funds, $27 a person. This is something to praise a politician of being able to accomplish. However, can $27 a person maintain a revolution?
Earlier in August, Senator Sanders launched an organization, Our Revolution, in an attempt to continue his once successful revolution. However, it seems that his organization is already in trouble with both its staff and its message or fighting political change. As the organization was being launched, it lost half of its staff due to them quitting after finding out that the Senator had hired Jeff Weaver as head of his organization. This caused such controversies since Weaver seeks donations from billionaires not from everyday americans. This seems like Our Revolution is turning its back on the promise of no big money influencing politics. Does this make the Senator a hypocrite?
No, it does not make the Senator a hypocrite and I actually want to give praises to the Senator and especially to Weaver for acknowledging that you need big donors to run a successful revolution. When you are attempting to win campaigns across the country (not just the presidency) and at different levels of government you need money to do so. For congressional candidates in the 2014 midterm elections, over 4 billion was spent by the candidates and that was not during a presidential year.
Now, I am not saying that the small donor model does not work. We saw it work with the charismatic Senator - who actually raised an average donation of $86 per person not the $27 he was oh so proud of. But in a clickbait world where non-charismatic candidates are attempting to gain attention and money - the small donor model may not be such a success. You need funds to get through to your constituents. With an organization such as Our Revolution your going to need money to be successful and you're also going to need people to know you even exist and as of right now Our Revolution is failing at both. Could this big donor model change? Possible. Will it? Unlikely.
If Our Revolution does not change something to make itself a success the “revolution” that Senator Sanders was able to build will soon fade out of existence. Because lets face it, the average American doesn’t pay attention to politics unless it directly affects them. And in case you didn’t know everything about politics affects us.
