Bernie Sanders Team Explains Why He Won't Hand Over His Donor List
From HuffPost: Bernie Sanders Team Explains Why He Won't Hand Over His Donor List:
During his insurgent run for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) built one of the most valuable tools in all of politics: his list of donors.
That list represents a veritable gold mine. It helped Sanders smash online fundraising records and build a grassroots donation structure that nearly propelled him to the presidency.
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On this episode of the Candidate Confessional podcast, the team directly responsible for building that list argues it wouldnt particularly make a difference even if Sanders gave it to the Democratic National Committee.
The list is not just some magical vehicle that anyone can tap into, explains Robin Curran of the firm Revolution Messaging. It was directly tied to the message Bernie carried on the campaign, and without that message, we would not have had the fundraising success that we did.
As Curran argues, Sanders had a unique ability to turn on an online fundraising spigot, and the people who gave money to him arent lemmings willing to give to just anyone.