Update July 29, 2006: I am pleased to report that we reached our $10,000 goal this morning when a hat was passed around a Democratic State Party campaign training. We should be proud to hold the distinction of being the first and only state in the Union to have raised acheived our target through grassroots fundraising. All of the other 8 states recently activated on ActBlue, received the bulk of their funds from from a national PAC. Read all about it here.
Originally published May 8, 2006: We raised $1276 during this weekend experiment in small dollar donations $620 for ActBlue-Utah. Of the 44 people who donated, 14 were from out of state. The total cost of this fundraiser was ZERO.

What does this mean? Online fundraising works. But we already knew that. Howard Dean proved that by raising 42 million dollars over the Internet in 2002 in $25 donations.

With ActBlue, every state level candidate will be able to fully utilize Internet technology to provide a simple, secure, and convenient way for supporters to donate directly to their campaign not just for the 2006 races, but year round and forever.

Another very powerful feature of ActBlue allows anyone to create a fundraising page for their favorite candidates like I did here, and to place a donate button in every e-mail, and ANY website. All money raised goes directly to the candidate monthly with all the reporting required by campaign finance laws.

Why am I doing this? Firstly, it’s too obvious. It is simply, by any objective measure, the most effective way to raise money. I’ve raised money through house parties for candidates. This is easier. If you invite 100 people to a house party, 25 might come, but the ones who don’t would donate if it were too easy.

Secondly, good governance requires a government for the people and by the people. Today, 60-85% of campaign funds come from institutional contributors. The only way to change that is to create an easy way for us couch potatoes to upset that balance.

Why don’t the republicans use this method? They certainly could. I don’t believe they want to. Beneath the veil of “moral values” they are a party of corporate interests, which benefits from a top-down electoral system. They need to control the nomination process to insure their corporate contributors get the results they are paying for. The simple 20-80% balance between Gas & Oil contributions by party speaks loudly to that fact, as does the cost of gasoline, the war in Iraq, and the high decibel fear mongering about terrorists, sex and the secret conspiracy of social engineering to destroy the “natural family.”

That’s right, the democrats can’t get their shit together enough to stand for anything, but they sure can organize a conspiracy to recruit kids into the gay lifestyle…whatever that is.

I herewith turn this project over to the State Democratic Party and Caucus. You, my friends, and I have paved the way. Lets see if the people who want to lead us will.

Moving forward, this blog will continue to be a platform for open discussion of the issues, policy, and politic. All are invited to submit top posts.

Further reading:

PEW Charitable Trust has the latest research on The internet on there website section called Internet Evolution A decade of adoption: How the internet has woven itself into American life.

Of particular relavance to Utah is Internet usage in rural areas. Turns out nationwide, rural areas are only 10% behind urban and suburban. But Utah as a whole is 10% beyond the nation.