April 07, 2004
Political Presence
Sometimes I wonder why political organizing isn't more like insurance agents. I was thinking about this last night as I fell asleep. It's sort of creepy sounding at first, but it makes sense in terms of scaling.You just get an agent to set up a local office. No elections, they just set up an office. Then they hustle to get donations. Like, a monthly or yearly schedule from as many constituents as possible. They'd have to convince people that submitting money to the Democratic party is worthwhile. Talking about the presidency, educating them about political realities and how it's in their best interest, whatever. The thing is that being able to claim credit for finding these donations would give them party power, and give them access to the DNC. And maybe these local agents would actually have power to change things for that local community, courtesy of the DNC.
And in exchange, these agents get a portion of the money that goes to the DNC. For all the money that goes to the DNC courtesy of that agent, the DNC pays that agent part of the money for services rendered.
So yeah, the creepy part (and possibly illegal, I don't know) is how it can be spun into bundling donations, and how the commission thing is probably against some regulation somewhere.
But, if the money is sent to the DNC no questions asked, and if every citizen continues to have the power to make their donations directly, not through an agent, and it's the DNC choosing to pay the local consultants for giving them information on the region, then maybe it's not illegal.
So that's my brainstorm roughdraft idea of the day. Is it impossible?