Backed by Army of Small-Dollar Donors, Sanders Camp Forges Ahead

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/21/backed-army-small-dollar-donors-sanders-camp-forges-ahead

The Sanders campaign late on Wednesday filed a report with the Federal Election Commission showing it raised nearly $46 million in March—its third straight month of beating rival Clinton in the money race. The record haul shows his campaign has the financial ability to do what Sanders has vowed to do since Super Tuesday: take his political revolution all the way to the Democratic National Convention in June.

<snip>

For Sanders backers like Burke Stansbury, a community organizer who lives in Seattle, the key reason to prolong Sanders' presidential campaign isn't necessarily to beat Hillary Clinton, but to deepen and sustain the momentum behind a burgeoning political revolution.

"Even after Clinton’s victory in New York on Tuesday, it seems likely that Sanders will take his candidacy right up to the Democratic convention," wrote Stansbury in an op-ed for the Guardian. "I, for one, am glad to see a tight race. The longer it goes, the more chance there is for a deepening political conversation about economic and racial justice, and the more people will become politically engaged through the process."

He concluded, "If we put too much faith in elected officials then we sell ourselves short. The real work is continuing to build grassroots movements that can hold whoever is elected accountable, and push for radical change."

Still, Kevin Gosztola argued in an op-ed Thursday, it's "premature to grapple with how the movement around the campaign can continue after the campaign is over when it frankly is not over yet."