Re: Fwd: John and Roy

From:bdeblasio.nyc@gmail.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com Date: 2016-03-18 16:51 Subject: Re: Fwd: John and Roy

What do you think? ----- On first blush, I think it has A LOT of merit. It would give Bernie followers a way to connect that would then be a good gateway to getting them more comfortable with Hillary. We need to keep continuity with them. And the money will be left on the table otherwise. This really could help Hillary get a Dem Senate and help create the progressive counter-weight she'll need to move much of her program. I stand ready to help build this. ----- What do you think of the People's PAC idea described below? Think it would work? I am sure our team would view it as competition and try to strangle it, but I think it might have merit. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Please think about this and feel free to share it. My column in The Hill today was about how Bernie and Hillary need to unite to defeat Trump was highlighted in bold at the center of the front page of the paper today. It is no secret that I support Hillary without profound enthusiasm and have spent months praising Bernie with huge enthusiasm. I have a ton of credibility with Bernie, his senior staff and above all his grassroots and small donor base, who consider me the mainstream columnist who has given Bernie the most fair shake in the media. Now, I am beginning to cash in the chips by setting the stage carefully and tactfully for Bernie's people to gravitate to Hillary by convention time. Most but not all of them will support Hillary, some will stay home, I worry about the younger people especially who do not view politics as we do. The next thing I am doing to suggest is an idea I slipped into the column today to get Bernie people thinking---for him to create a People's PAC to amass small donors to support liberal Democrats for the House and Senate in November. Bernie's small donor base has revolutionary potential. $42 million in February alone. Their natural tendency after the primaries will be to largely disperse. Some, but not a huge number, will give to Hillary. The next thing I intend to propose is that Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio announce before the convention the People's PAC, raise a huge amount of money from small donors using the convention as a launching pad, to support liberal Dems in the House and Senate (and Hillary). The convention itself would be an ideal launching pad combining old and new media, television and social media, for fundraising and organizing. A reasonable goal would be to raise from small donors $100 million to $200 million which could help elect some very key liberals to the House and Senate. That's a lot of dough to influence 8 key Senate races and 35 swing House races and would make a material difference in who controls Congress. The project would help fuse together the Clinton and Sanders people, and Democrats in the presidential and Congressional campaigns using the convention as an organizing and motivating vehicle. One of the reasons I made it a point to praise Podesta in my column today as a genuine progressive is not only that I believe it is true, but that I wanted to put my credibility as a progressive behind John's credibility. The Sanders insiders know this already, and I assume some of these conversations are privately going on now, but the Sanders grassroots know me well by now, since I was writing about Bernie long before others in the media would give Bernie the time of day. What I want to do is keep the Sanders grassroots and small donor movements in place and behind liberals running for Congress, rather than fading away. Simply being the party that is not Trump alone is not nearly enough--we need to create a sense as conservatives have done that this is a movement for change which the People's PAC would help motivate and quantify with real money that can help us win Congress, without which a Democratic presidency will be a formula for frustration. If Republicans nominate Trump, we have a strong chance of regaining the Senate and winning enough House seats to be within reach of a working majority and long shot chance of control. http://thehill.com/opinion/brent-budowsky/273308-budowsky-hillary-bernie-must-unite-to-beat-trump Sent from my iPad