Is
buying Sanders an ad on reddit really the best use of funds?
OTOH, if the specter of married gay pizza in Indiana can crowdfund nearly a million dollars, perhaps it can happen, although as one saw with the early 2004 campaign failure combining Howard Dean and Joe Trippi, one wonders whether Sanders can sustain a 50-state battle of ideas against the Clinton campaign.
He has $4.6 million available for his 2018 Senate re-election campaign that he can use for a presidential run, and Mr. Sanders said he hoped to galvanize a movement of small donors to give himself a fighting chance.
“We’re not going to raise $2 billion, and we’re not going to raise $1 billion,” said Mr. Sanders, who added that he did not intend to use the help of a “super PAC.” “I do not have millionaire or billionaire friends.”
In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington on March 9, Mr. Sanders said he fantasized about getting 3 million supporters to each donate $100 to his campaign. The total, he joked, would be about a third of what the billionaire Koch brothers planned to spend to elect a Republican president.
Bloomberg ran an article last month titled “Bernie Sanders Hates Campaign Cash, the Very Thing He’ll Need to Beat Hillary Clinton.” The Boston Globe’s James Pindell wrote Tuesday: “If Sanders stands a shot, it would be through a few people willing to giving millions to a Super PAC – a concept he abhors.”
The real irony is that the news media is dismissing any chance of something else Sanders needs: help from the news media. He said it himself during the announcement of his candidacy Thursday.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos presented a fantasy to presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders – that Republicans would be running TV attack ads against him.
“I can hear the Republican attack ad right now,” Mr. Stephanopolous said Sunday morning on “This Week.” “He wants America to look more like Scandinavia.”
Of course, Mr. Sanders, a Vermont independent who announced Thursday he’s running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, would only be the subject of such negative advertising if he were to topple the party’s heavy favorite, Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, Mr. Sanders accepted the premise...
“That’s right,” he said. “That’s right. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong when you have more income and wealth equality. What’s wrong when they have a stronger middle class in many ways than we do, a higher minimum wage than we do and they’re stronger on the environment than we are.”