The man behind the full page ads with the "Letter to Electors"
The ad can be viewed here:
http://lettertoelectors.org/#gs.7oDdfwU
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-electors-activist-campaign-electoral-college-232635
The ads are being funded by Daniel Brezenoff, a social worker and grassroots Democratic activist who gained a following after the election when he launched a Change.org petition urging the Electoral College to pick Hillary Clinton instead of Trump. The petition went viral and is approaching 5 million signatures, the largest in Change.org’s history. He leveraged that list to raise about $250,000 through a GoFundMe page to support the ads. He said the newspaper campaign has exhausted virtually all of the funds raised.
Brezenoff told POLITICO he still supports his initial goal to convince the Electoral College to support Clinton, but he says he understands that other activists are working toward electing an alternative Republican to Trump. He said the ads focused on a shared goal: to convince electors to exercise their own judgment before voting.
The full-page ad includes a link to a page of signers that includes Brezenoff and two Democratic electors working to elect a moderate Republican alternative to Trump – Colorado’s Micheal Baca and Washington state’s P. Bret Chiafalo. A third elector, Washington’s Beth Caldwell, has also signed. A slew of academics with expertise in history, law and the constitution signed the letter. Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins is among the signatories as well.
Brezenoff said the ad campaign is designed to reach electors but also raise public pressure on them in states with large Democratic populations or widespread anti-Trump sentiment. The Washington Post was included, he said, because backers wanted to include a national outlet and decided the nation’s capital was an appropriate venue to spread the message.