When you see Bernie's huge crowds consider how many volunteers can be recruited for the campaign

[Bjorn Against]

This weekend it is looking like Bernie Sanders is going to attract more huge crowds, but this time those huge crowds will be in the red states of Arizona and Texas which the naysayers insisted Bernie had no support in.

The pundits will no doubt be telling us that crowd sizes don't translate to votes, but they could not be any more wrong. These huge crowds are going to win millions of votes for Bernie and this is how they will do it.

The Sanders campaign is not just holding these rallies to get people to cheer for their candidate, they are using these rallies to build an army of volunteers. At all of these rallies they have people going around with clipboards and signing people up to get involved in the campaign.

I was at the rally in Minneapolis last month when they signed me up to volunteer and I was not alone. They signed up hundreds of people at that event who have already participated in activities with the campaign. There are already plans to bus Minnesotans down to Iowa to door knock and get people out to the caucuses, the names that were gathered at that rally are going to help to fill multiple buses of people to Iowa. The Sanders campaign has already built a large organization in the state and the Minneapolis rally played a large part in building that organization.

The event in Phoenix will be particularly important as it is happening at the same time as Netroots Nation and will be attended by many bloggers and people who have a lot of influence on social media. If you can get the bloggers enthused and you can get social media to spread those blogs that means the campaign gets some great free advertising.

These rallies are building large networks of volunteers as well as a lot of free advertising through social media, anyone who tries to tell you that will not translate to votes is flat out wrong.

[RandySF]

1. I saw huge crowds for Howard Dean, too.

[Bjorn Against]

2. And Howard Dean had a very strong campaign until it stumbled at the end

Remember that Howard Dean held the lead for much of the campaign and he had a ton of volunteers. Dean ultimately did not win but he did far better than anyone expected he would do when he entered the race as someone who had almost no name recognition.

[HooptieWagon]

10. I think Dean could have recovered from "the scream".

He folded his tent up a bit early, he could have been a pretty strong nominee.

[Indepatriot]

13. Hitler too! Hitler had HUGE crowds!

[Scuba]

14. Snort! Nicely done.

[AverageGuy]

20. I support Hillary, but what you said is sickening

Nothing wrong with Hillary, but I can not say the same thing about some of her supporters

[sabrina 1]

15. I saw huge crowds for Obama too!

We didn't have Social Media when the MSM decided to try to destroy Dean, no doubt with instructions from their Corporate bosses.

If that were to happen today, they would be destroyed for doing what they did.

We are not back in the old days, times have changed. Deception, negative talking points, all of which USED to work, have little impact to day as the people use the tools they now have to mock those who are trying to stop Bernie.

Not only will their money not help to destroy another candidate, it will HELP him to prove what he has been saying, that they will go to any lengths to prevent the people from winning.

So far all their efforts have resulted in more support for Bernie because they just don't get it. People have told them what they want, they want an end to the money that is controlling our elections and they want to talk about ISSUES.

But I'm happy to let them continue to use the 'politics of personal destruction', not my problem if they want to waste all those corporate dollars. It will help my candidate and that's all I care about.

[Thinkingabout]

3. Follow the money, as in campaign contributions, Hillary is holding strong on support and donations

[Bjorn Against]

4. Yes, the wealthy interests who want to buy influence prefer Hillary.

I prefer candidates built by the grassroots to candidates who are funded by the wealthy.

[SoapBox]

11. ^This^

[Thinkingabout]

16. Oh, it isn't just wealthy interests, it is common Americans wanting to elect a very qualified

candidate who has knowledge and experience which is going to make Hillary a great president. BTW, she has lots of grassroots supporters, we are working hard.

[artislife]

5. I went to a luncheon for Patty Murray

Maria Cantwell and Al Franken were there as well. You know what they did?

They asked us to donate.

They didn't ask us to go door to door, anything. Patty and Maria may have lost some voters due to their pro TPP votes.
They are certainly not really trying to reach out to new voters.


And on the whole, I like them. But they are

So old school.

[Snotcicles]

8. I don't think Al Franken lived up to his potential. That is a big bummer for me. nt

[artislife]

9. At the luncheon, too

Al wasn't that funny or invigorating. Maria was pretty good. She may have aspirations. I liked Patty since she was a mom in tennis shoes. She really supports the vets amongst other issues. I have already belabored my sadness of their pro TPP votes.


The room was full of older women. I got tickets because my client got them. Just last week, this 67 year old Democrat posted on Facebook a link to "Educators for Bernie Sanders."


The shift is in!

[brooklynite]

6. In all fairness, does ANY serious Presidential campaign lack for volunteers?

The problem is that you need paid staff to work the grindingly long hours that even the most dedicated volunteer can't commit to. And to pay the paid staff, you need adequate campaign funds.

[Bjorn Against]

7. One volunteer usually can't handle the grindingly long hours, but hundreds of them can

If the campaign needs a lot of paid staff to work grindingly long hours that is evidence that the campaign is lacking volunteers.

[mythology]

19. Not so much

It's paid staff that organizes volunteers into something useful. Otherwise all those volunteers have no organization or strategic goals.

Obama wasn't lacking for volunteers, but it was Axelrod, Plouffe and technical expertise that put the volunteers to work.

Yes volunteers are necessary, but as noted by somebody else, no major campaign is short on those.

[SoapBox]

12. I'm proud to be a member of Bernie's army.

go Bernie!

[Recursion]

17. And that's definitely going to be a test for the Sanders campaign

What's their volunteer conversion rate going to be? Particularly if he's conceding a funding gap from the start (which is how I read what he's said), he's going to need a lot of people on the ground game. How well his campaign channels this energy will be a crucial test.

[Bjorn Against]

18. I agree, this campaign can only succeed if there are a lot of volunteers

This is a major test for Sanders, fortunately his campaign seems to be handling this test very well so far. Just in Minnesota alone we already have hundreds of volunteers with several months to build before the Iowa and later Minnesota caucuses. More people certainly will be needed, but the campaign is off to an amazing start in building their army of volunteers.