Subject: Re: Fwd: John and Roy
From: "Bill de Blasio" <[email-masked]>
To: "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 18:51:14 +0000

What do you think?

-----Original Message-----
From: "Bill de Blasio" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:42:26 
To: John Podesta<[email-masked]>
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Fwd: John and Roy

On first blush, I think it has A LOT of merit. It would give Bernie followers a way to connect that would then be a good gateway to getting them more comfortable with Hillary. We need to keep continuity with them. And the money will be left on the table otherwise. This really could help Hillary get a Dem Senate and help create the progressive counter-weight she'll need to move much of her program. I stand ready to help build this.

-----Original Message-----
From: John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2016 11:09:01 
To: Bill de Blasio<[email-masked]>
Subject: Fwd: John and Roy

What do you think of the People's PAC idea described below? Think it would
work? I am sure our team would view it as competition and try to strangle
it, but I think it might have merit.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Brent Budowsky* <[email-masked]>
Date: Thursday, March 17, 2016
Subject: John and Roy
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]"
<[email-masked]>

Please think about this and feel free to share it.  My column in The Hill
today was about how Bernie and Hillary need to unite to defeat Trump was
highlighted in bold at the center of the front page of the paper today.

It is no secret that I support Hillary without profound enthusiasm and have
spent months praising Bernie with huge enthusiasm.  I have a ton of
credibility with Bernie, his senior staff and above all his grassroots and
small donor base, who consider me the mainstream columnist who has given
Bernie the most fair shake in the media.

Now, I am beginning to cash in the chips by setting the stage carefully and
tactfully for Bernie's people to gravitate to Hillary by convention time.
Most but not all of them will support Hillary, some will stay home, I worry
about the younger people especially who do not view politics as we do.

The next thing I am doing to suggest is an idea I slipped into the column
today to get Bernie people thinking---for him to create a People's PAC to
amass small donors to support liberal Democrats for the House and Senate in
November.

Bernie's small donor base has revolutionary potential.  $42 million in
February alone.  Their natural tendency after the primaries will be to
largely disperse.  Some, but not a huge number, will give to Hillary.

The next thing I intend to propose is that Bernie, Elizabeth Warren and
Bill de Blasio announce before the convention the People's PAC, raise a
huge amount of money from small donors using the convention as a launching
pad, to support liberal Dems in the House and Senate (and Hillary).

The convention itself would be an ideal launching pad combining old and new
media, television and social media, for fundraising and organizing.  A
reasonable goal would be to raise from small donors $100 million to $200
million which could help elect some very key liberals to the House and
Senate.  That's a lot of dough to influence 8 key Senate races and 35 swing
House races and would make a material difference in who controls Congress.
The project would help fuse together the Clinton and Sanders people, and
Democrats in the presidential and Congressional campaigns using the
convention as an organizing and motivating vehicle.

One of the reasons I made it a point to praise Podesta in my column today
as a genuine progressive is not only that I believe it is true, but that I
wanted to put my credibility as a progressive behind John's credibility.
The Sanders insiders know this already, and I assume some of these
conversations are privately going on now, but the Sanders grassroots know
me well by now, since I was writing about Bernie long before others in the
media would give Bernie the time of day.

What I want to do is keep the Sanders grassroots and small donor movements
in place and behind liberals running for Congress, rather than fading
away.  Simply being the party that is not Trump alone is not nearly
enough--we need to create a sense as conservatives have done that this is a
movement for change which the People's PAC would help motivate and quantify
with real money that can help us win Congress, without which a Democratic
presidency will be a formula for frustration.

If Republicans nominate Trump, we have a strong chance of regaining the
Senate and winning enough House seats to be within reach of a working
majority and long shot chance of control.

http://thehill.com/opinion/brent-budowsky/273308-budowsky-hillary-bernie-must-unite-to-beat-trump

Sent from my iPad