An interesting thing to note with those fundraising numbers is that in terms of individual donors, Bernie Sanders is the only candidate that has more donors than Trump in this election season. Considering he leads not just the Dem field, but the entire field, incumbent Republican president included, in number of donors, and has fundraised more money with those donors than any other Dem, I'd say he's probably the safest bet to beat Trump, even more than Biden. Biden just doesn't drive enough enthusiasm to even outraise Trump, despite being the supposed frontrunner. In fact, he's in fifth place in fundraising in the Dem field. Pretty pitiful performance, really, for someone with that much establishment backing. Not 2016 Jeb! levels of pitiful, but still pretty bad to be honest.

Clinton outraised Trump 2:1 with small donors... and Cruz outraised them both. I wouldn't take it as meaning much for the general elections.

Not to mention it just takes a shameless grafter like Yang, Gabbard or Williamson to part a (often young and idealistic) fool from their money.

Bernie having the largest amount of donors does not surprise me. He's a populit and is running on ideas he helped popularize.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kg3m/joe-biden-is-coming-for-your-legal-recreational-weed
Joe Bidens Cannabis plan is bad.

I understand the symbolism of Sanders and Warren going for small donors, but honestly, it's a really stupid strategy and they're playing with a handicap against Trump. The better strategy would be to play the game, and pledge that election reform will be one of the top priorities.

Biden recovered due to the second debate, and the reason was that everyone (except like Inslee and Yang) was focusing on him, more stupid strategies because it puts the attention is on him - allows him the opportunity to respond; politicians generally can win all exchanges because Biden isn't really doing anything outrageous, the best attack was Kamala Harris's in the first debate round where she criticized him for a statement he made 42 years ago. I had NO idea that was 42 years ago, and that's the reason it was effective because people are ignorant (like me). Digging a little bit more into it his intent was not even meant to be racist, he literally believed that laws stating that black kids being forced to sit with white kids was racist for the implication that black kids in the US could only be equal by being forced to sit with white kids... no doubt ignorant on his part, but it was (in the end) a really nasty sort of attack that really should have been called out by the debate moderators as a foul. Also, dumb of Kamala Harris trying the same attack again in round two of the debates because Biden had a similar record attack to fling right back at her.

Anyway, if the other candidates really don't want Biden to win, they have to stop giving him all this extra stage time and focus on debating the actual issues of relevance giving their OWN perspectives, rather than focusing on what Biden did when he was a young man. What happened during that debate is we got to learn more about Yang, Inslee, and Joe Biden; we didn't learn anything about the positions of the others or why they're good.

Who would you have them accept large donations from? Because it's immoral and unethical to accept donations from large corporations, and no one would trust him ever again because they'd rightfully believe that he'd be bending his ear to the corporate lobbyists. You don't just get donations from corporations for no reason. You get them because you're already supporting their goals, or you're willing to listen to their lobbyists in exchange for money and they want to purchase your ear. That's how it works in America, and if Sanders or Warren started doing that, they'd entirely lose the trust of their base. Their brand would be utterly destroyed, and their movements would collapse.

Would you have them accept money directly from billionaires? You might be able to argue that the right billionaire's donation might not destroy their brands, but seriously, how the fuck could Bernie go up on stage and rail against millionaires and billionaires, and expect to be taken seriously, if he was taking any of their money?

And what handicap are you seeing here? Because I'm seeing Sanders outraise the field, and that's before he's consolidated it behind him. He has more donors with his ~20% of one party than the incumbent president! That's insane! And Warren is right behind him, so she could do it too if she were to get enough support lined up behind her. Are you even aware of how much ActBlue absolutely crushed the Republican fundraising apparatus in 2018? It's domination has been growing every cycle, and will only outdo them even more this time. It isn't a handicap. You're imagining things. The numbers don't lie. If Sanders is leading now, what do you think is going to happen when his support goes from ~20% to near 100% of the nation's largest party by registration while also leading among independents? This isn't a handicap, it's a strength.

I disagree on the donation thing. The problem with that is, that you really can't tell where the priorities of a candidate are. Is he or she working to improve the system or for the donors? In my opinion tzhe allegiance of politicians should be with the people, not corporations or big organizations. I tend to think more and more, that all corporate donations into the political system are harmful.

I agree on attacking Biden. It is all right to call out blemishes on his record, but the first priority for everyone should be to tell the voter why they themself have the best solutions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-iLk1G_ng

Don't know if you guys know Joe Rogan, but he just did an hour long interview with Bernie, and they get pretty deep into several subjects and issues. Very interesting.

I don't think campaign donations is something that anyone changes views to gain since there's no mandate for campaigns to do things in the best interest of their donors. Where the problem lies is with the lopsided donations toward pro-corporate politicians giving them an unfair advantage. Why I don't think it's ludicrous for Warren and Sanders to not take those is that they're handing that advantage to Trump on a silver platter. IMO, it's foolishness on their part.

It's not going to sway the positions of Sanders, Warren, or any of them if they get big donations from left-leaning corporations, unions, or leftist special interest groups. As I said, how big donations impacts US politics is that corporations with political interests will donate TONS of money to the politicians that support the interests of corporations. These politicians aren't being swayed either, for the most part they don't even know where the money is coming from, nor should it matter; they're already pro-corporate. The money doesn't even directly benefit them since it's for their campaign efforts, they don't get to keep the millions they don't spend, that stays with the party/campaign.

It's a completely separate issue than politicians taking up positions in corporations after the completion of their terms. Now this I HIGHLY agree with Bernie and Warren on in asking people to take an oath NOT to take a corporate job in the future that is a conflict of interest with the position they're being elected to. I would HIGHLY support Warren and Sanders for agreeing NOT to take up any corporate position following any potential term they may serve, or any post-political career paycheques. This should be law. It's practically a form of legal bribery.

Anyway, I think that Warren and Sanders are trying to appeal to people who conflate these two things. Or it might just be that they're trying to lead by example. Either way, I think it's a foolish game they're playing, there is absolutely nothing won here for progressives, but it is less money for the candidates you want to win.

In short:
* The current laws allow corporations to give lots of money to campaigns.
* Progressive campaigns get less money than their pro-corporate counterparts as a result of the above rule 
* We DO want to get rid of big money and corporate donations in order to level the playing field.
* We SHOULDN'T want the progressive politicians to voluntarily run even smaller campaigns, and pro-corporate politicians to run even larger campaigns relative to the progressives.

I wouldn't vote for Bernie but this interview was really good. It was Bernie without all of his pre rehearsed lines from 2016.