How Act Blue empowers Sanders

[eridani]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us/politics/small-donors-are-clicking-more-with-democrats-than-republicans.html

“They’ve obviously found a successful formula that works with their base,” Benjamin Ginsberg, a prominent Republican campaign lawyer in Washington, said. “We don’t have something like ActBlue. We wish we did.”

The speed and sophistication of the 11-year-old operation have given Mr. Sanders a huge edge in the race to gather support from smaller donors, an important test of how well candidates connect with grass-roots voters.

Mr. Sanders’s reliance on checks from small donors is all the more unusual in an election where a handful of extraordinarily wealthy families have provided so much of the cash for the campaign, mostly backing Republicans and the “super PACs” behind them. Mr. Sanders is one of the only candidates running for president without a super PAC in his corner.

It is a contrast relished by Mr. Sanders, who has called for a “moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders.”

Mr. Sanders’s closest rival for small donations on the Republican side is Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has tapped into an enthusiastic base of evangelical voters. Almost three-quarters of the $31.3 million Mr. Carson raised through Sept. 30 came from donations of $200 or less.

But most of that money was raised through printed solicitations that land in voters’ mailboxes, a method that is much more costly than online fund-raising.

[Enthusiast]

1. The way Bernie is funding his campaign should be reason enough to get him elected.

Not even considering all the other ways Bernie is wonderful.