"Hope" and "change" (and a whole lot of money) propelled Obama to victory.
After endorsing President-elect Obama last February, MoveOn.org Political Action's 4.5 million members contributed more than $88 million towards Barack Obama's presidential campaign, the organization announced on Wednesday. And more than 1 million MoveOn.org members worked in a trail-blazing field effort in coordination with the Obama campaign.
In the 2008 presidential campaign, MoveOn.org and its members admitted they:
– Contributed more than $58 million directly to Obama's campaign.
– Raised and spent more than $30 million in independent election efforts.
– Delivered up to 600,000 battleground state volunteers. 400,000 more volunteers participated from non-battleground states.
– Added 1 million young members from June to September 2008, and mobilized them online and offline.
– Registered more than 500,000 new young Obama supporters in battleground states.
The executive director of MoveOn.org, Eli Pariser, said in a statement on Obama's victory, "Our members sense the opportunity to achieve things that seemed improbable if not impossible only a year ago. For our members, this is the culmination of a decade of work to build a progressive, people-driven politics in America."
Another example of how politics is irony.
The economy is so bad, we have a non-profit donating $88 million to get a man elected to office.
I can think of plenty of ways to use $88 million more effectively:
Disaster relief (voluntarily funded, and more efficient)
Homeless shelters
Soup Kitchens
Centers for Single mothers / Single pregnant women
Youth centers
Charter schools
I could probably think of more, but you know, why carefully spend $88 million on causes you believe in when you can waste it getting a man elected who will help waste billions on things you don't, just so you might get what you want, only without the efficiency and dedication?
If you are hungry enough to win you will find a way. Money is not everything, in fact too much money and too much advertisement is detrimental to a campaign. What they did in a short term only produced 1.3 million new voters and those voters were helped by ACORN, and a few other organization such as CREW, and the gay lobby, and the abortion lobby, and the teachers Unions – all that for only 1.3 million voters. How come they didn’t attract 10 million – because there was really no clear message.
Isn’t it at all curious that John McCain lost 1.3 million voters this election just by reaching across the isle? It took no money at all just a screwed up campaign design to remove 1.3 million voters (mostly hard line conservatives. Yes Obama was elected, but if conservatism is hungry enough it can win the next election hands down if it chooses to do so. Note Proposition 8 in California won by a little over 250,000 votes. Seventy per cent of Black Voters almost all who voted for Obama, also voted for Proposition 8. Conservatism exist, it just need to be marketed, sold, coordinated, communicated with and sold as a real alternative. NeoCons must be torn out, pulled out, thrown out, removed, dismissed, and ignored, what ever it takes to get them out of the Republican Party.