Last night I posted a diary on DailyKos that proposed a campaign to raise $7 million dollars in one day for John Edwards: John Edwards: $7 Million Dollars In One Day – Make It Happen
The point of the diary was not just to fill Edwards’ campaign coffers, but to jerk the media into paying some attention to a candidate that is still viable but is being shut out of the process. Some pollsters and news organizations have stopped including Edwards in their surveys. This is way too early for the press to be making irresponsible proclamations about the race. They have plenty of time to be irresponsible in March or April.
Ron Paul has managed to stir up respectable levels of exposure despite his low standings in most polls. After being excluded from a Fox News-sponsored debate in New Hampshire, he has now been invited to participate in a Fox debate in South Carolina. That reversal on the part of Fox didn’t occur due to some crisis of conscience on the part of Fox editors. It occurred partly because Paul’s supporters were pissed and they let it be known, and partly because Paul had validated himself in terms the media can understand – fund raising. Having drawn in a record $6 million dollars in one day went a long ways toward forcing the press to pay attention.
Edwards has far more support than Paul in the electorate and within his party, but the press won’t cover him based on rational criteria like that. So if Edwards wants to receive the coverage to which he ought to be entitled, he could either engage in a high speed police chase with Britney’s kids on his lap and a missing white girl in the trunk, or he could set a new record by raising $7 million dollars in one day.
When I posted the diary at DailyKos it received some modest support and good wishes, then scrolled off the page into oblivion. Or so I thought. This morning I awoke to find it featured on the DailyKos “Recommended List” with almost 200 comments attached. So maybe this idea has legs after all.
I believe this is an ambitious but achievable goal and hope that everyone who reads this will participate in the effort. Feel free to use the the graphic above to get the word out. Post it on your blog, MySpace, Facebook, etc. Send it emails to all your friends and family. To embed it on another site, copy and paste this code:
$7 million dollars is a lot of money to raise online, and 5 days is not a lot of time to organize. But if Ron Paul can do it, fer gawds sake, we ought to be able to.