I'd Like to be Dem Activist, but I Don't Have a Million Dollars

During the campaign for the chairmanship of the DNC, Simon Rosenberg was asked over and over again - "Yeah, but if you don't get the chair, will you stay involved?"   Everyone wondered if Simon would take his money ideas and go home.  He said over and over again that he wouldn't and it looks like he hasn't:

At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades.

The money will be channeled through a new partnership called the Democracy Alliance, which was founded last spring -- the latest in a series of liberal initiatives as the Democratic Party and its allies continue to struggle with the loss of the House and the Senate in 1994 and the presidency in 2000. Many influential Democratic contributors were left angry and despairing over the party's poor showing in last year's elections, and are looking for what they hope will be more effective ways to invest their support.

Financial commitments totaling at least $80 million over the next five years generated by the Democracy Alliance in recent months -- at a time when some liberal groups, such as the George Soros-backed America Coming Together, are floundering -- suggest that the group is becoming a player in the long-term effort to reinvigorate the left. The group has a goal of raising $200 million -- a sum that would inevitably come in part at the expense of more traditional Democratic groups, although alliance officials say donors have committed to maintaining past contribution levels.

The story is accompanied by one photo and it's of Simon.  I wish a more progressive, anti-DLC  liberal were one of the public faces of the project but we need some kind of organization at the top and the people with money aren't taking my calls right now so I'll take what I can get.

The story raises questions (in a buried lead) about where the power in the party will settle:

The shift of big money givers to the alliance poses a threat to the survival of such pro-Democratic independent groups as America Coming Together and the Media Fund. These two groups depended on many of the same donors to raise $196.7 million in 2003 and 2004. ACT recently announced that it is closing state offices and laying off most staff members. Democratic sources said its long-term survival is in doubt.

Soros, the billionaire financier, was the most prominent backer of the 2004 Democratic groups, but he has assumed only a modest role in the Democracy Alliance. He has stopped donating to ACT.

ACT did good grassroots work in my county last year.  If this plan is going to end up further centralizing power at the top of the party, I'm even less impressed.  I'm not sure that everyone in the party shares Dean's belief that the best way to gain power is to give it away.  And when you throw money into the mix, I think the number drops even lower.  The pro-war WaPO story would have been a better one if it asked some of those questions.

Related: Some of that money should be pushed into whatever project will work 24/7 for election reform in all fifty states.  That's how you win elections.  The GOP internalized that bit of Stalinesque wisdom, tested the plan in Florida in 2000 and then gave us HAVA.  We won't make any progress with the bulk of the country disenfranchised. 

Comments

[anon]

Your links are messed up.

BTW: Rosenberg is as DLC as they get. He just fuck over the CWA union fight to keep Comcast merger from taking over 50% of the national market.

[eRobin]

Thanks, anon. I fixed it.

Do you have a link to that Rosenberg CWA story?

[Captain Video]

If you want to be an activist but don't have a million dollars, support MOVE ON. It gathers a lot of modest size contributions into significant sums.