Connections: It’s the Internet

Throughout the drawn out 2016 election season I found myself puzzled about why candidates asked potential supporters for small contributions — $3 for various senatorial candidates, $1 for Hillary Clinton. Then it became evident. As Bernie Sanders has proved, it adds up.

As Super Tuesday approached this week, with 11 state primaries and caucuses taking place, Senator Sanders had achieved what he called an unbelievable amount of money in small contributions. He raised $33.6 million in the last three months of 2015, another $20 million in January, and, by Tuesday, his campaign reported having taken in $42 million in February alone, with a goal of $45 million.

By then, the Sanders campaign had announced that the average contribution had been $27, and with what almost seemed to be tongue in cheek changed it to $2.70. It would take some sort of political philosopher to explain why these $27 and $2.70 figures dovetail with the $2,700 federal limit on the amount individuals can contribute. At any rate, I have become something of an Internet junkie, searching for facts and figures.

Federal Election Commission results as of the end of January showed Hillary Clinton ahead of everyone else in both Democratic and Republican fund-raising, with $188 million taken in. Ted Cruz followed with $104.2 million, while the Sanders campaign closed at $96.3 million. (Donald Trump’s fund-raising isn’t evident on these comparisons because so much of his war chest comes from himself or his companies.)

I find myself getting lost in these figures on the Internet, even though I am not much of a numbers person. For example, looking back to 2008, I learned that in the first 21 months of  the Barack Obama campaign for the presidency, he had raised more than $750 million — more than the total amount raised by all the presidential candidates combined in 2004. Wikipedia reports Mr. Obama raised $778,642,962 by Election Day, while John McCain had raised only about half that amount, or $383,913,834. Did the dollar amounts make the results inevitable?

Senator Sanders calls his campaign a political revolution, which is fair enough, but his ability to raise most of his money in small contributions is part of a broader change in fund-raising made possible by the Internet. You might not find the word “crowdfunding” in your old dictionary, but it is a phenomenon, taking off from grassroots fund-raising for charitable causes, which has been in the lexicon for years.  It’s a brave new world and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention GoFundMe and Kickstarter, the top crowdfunding websites.

A GoFundMe account is under way to help Doug Kuntz, a photographer who has contributed to The East Hampton Star for many years, pay for his numerous flights to and from Europe, starting with Greece, to chronicle the refugee crisis and do everything he can do personally.

(“Defying All Odds a Cat Returns to its Refugee Family in Norway,”  a story in which Doug was a major player, can be found here.) Take a look.