For those WONDERING how the Edwards Fund Drive went:

I hate to be bearer of bad news, but reading between the lines below, I'm not seeing record numbers.

We've seen this before with the Kucinich donation drives. Don't get down-hearted... the problem is not what you think. The reason Ron Paul is able to get these record donations is that conservatives are, in general, dissatisfied with ALL of their main choices and therefore they are able to mobilize support for him as a clear "none of the above" alternative and protest candidate. On the democratic side, regardless of your personal views on each of the candidates, in general we (the grand "WE") are fairly satisfied with what we're being offered.

Yes, the most progressive among us are dissatisfied with the mainstream media's attempt to narrow the race down to the two least progressive candidates - but in general across America, democrats are not up in arms about it. This is why we have been unable to duplicate the "money bombs" of the Ron Paul campaign; it has nothing to do with the candidates we are attempting to build up.

Sorry to have to bring people back down to earth who had their hopes up high - I've been there before with the Kucinich campaign and I know how it probably feels to many of you. However, your donations WILL be put to good use and everything helps.

http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2008/1/19/16242/1593

David Bonior in News
1/19/2008 at 4:02 PM EST

Thank you! On behalf of John and Elizabeth Edwards and our entire campaign, I want to thank everyone who made a contribution on Friday, January 18th. In particular, I want to thank all those from the netroots community for rallying to our side at a time when we need it most. Thanks to you, we received several thousand contributions on Friday - and more than half of those contributions were from folks who had never before made a donation to our campaign.

As a result of your support, Friday was one of the best online fundraising days ever for our campaign. And, importantly, the great majority of those contributions will be eligible for matching funds, doubling the impact of your extraordinary effort.

We appreciate every contribution and every contributor to our campaign. We know many of those who have given to this campaign do so because they see that John is fighting for them - for their families and for the American dream we hold close to our hearts. Thank you for continuing to stand with John, and for helping to get out his message of bold, transformational change.

David Bonior is the national campaign manager for the John Edwards for President campaign.

Edwards effort materialized very late.
There wasn't really any chance to match the Pauliac effort.

I'm just guessing on that one.

There was no website and no one outside of this site, DailyKos, and a few other blogs knew about it. There was a facebook group about it. Only 19 people joined it. That tells you how little publicity it got outside of the blogosphere.

and a blogosphere effort with no centralized support from the campaign can add "several thousand" donors and "one of the best days of fundraising" with a week's notice.

Imagine where we could be if the media were actually talking about our candidate to the people who aren't the core supporters on the 'net?

I want our voices to be heard, dammit. It's a sad day, indeed.

I didn't give because I've already donated $200 this month. Will have to wait for next month.

I didn't get that at all from the message!

Regarding the drive, it was FIVE days in the making. I was hopeful, but I really wondered if it was enough time to spread the message to everyone who would be interested.

I'm sure there'll be people reading about the spontaneously organized fund raising event in the days to come, and will wish they'd heard about it in time so they could've participated!

Onwards, Upwards, Edwards. 2008

Too bad somebody didn't think of it LONG AGO. Although someone else made a good point also that even the successful ones haven't helped Ron Paul much. I'm thinking that the media got all excited about the first one, but I heard nothing about his second one from the MSM. I think maybe the money-bomb is a "newsworthy first time only" thing. Or at least "newsworthy first time it happens during the campaign season".

but its over for him. Too bad, he would have been a great President.

John keeps saying he's in it for the long haul. As more and more people hear his message, they will see he is the best candidate we've got.