Tim Murphy over at Mother Jones has an amusing article up: Democrats Are Desperate for Bernie Sanders' Email List (But if they get it, will they know what to do with it?)
Bernie raised over $229 million for the primary from a record 2.8 million individual donors. The seven million separate contributions Bernie received exceeded the total for Obama’s entire 2008 primary + general election campaign. The Democrats would be guilty of political malpractice if they didn’t try to learn some of that mojo. But Sanders’ staffers think they are going about it all wrong by focusing on Bernie’s e-mail list:
"They keep thinking it's the list," says Becky Bond, who as a senior adviser to Sanders helped build the candidate's national organizing operation. "It's so crazy. It's like someone who buys a $12,000 bicycle and thinks they can win the Tour de France. [...]
The fear among Sanders alums isn't just that the DNC can't recreate the magic. It's that the party will sap his supporters' energy with the kinds of gimmicky pitches the Sanders campaign swore off. Democrats often "treat their email lists as Chicken Little, 'sky is falling,' trying to con money out of people, whereas Bernie took steps to actually bring people together and have messaging that they were a part of it and treat people with respect," Whitney says. As an example of what he and other Sanders supporters are afraid of, he points to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which peppers its email list at the end of each month with passive-aggressive "final notice" emails, warning them that their "membership" in the party will expire if they don't donate immediately.
Bernie’s staff is right, the list isn’t the secret sauce in Bernie’s fundraising operation. Much of it came down to the candidate and his message. Here’s Clare Foran writing in the Atlantic last year, describing how it worked.
When Bernie Sanders makes a demand for money, he gets it. After winning the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic presidential candidate broadcast a plea. “I’m going to hold a fundraiser right here, right now, across America,” Sanders declared, urging anyone who would listen to visit his website and make a donation—“whether it’s 10 bucks, or 20 bucks, or 50 bucks.” Money poured in at a rapid clip. By the end of the next day, the campaign had collected a staggering $8 million. [...]
The campaign claims the moral high ground by emphasizing that Sanders is not beholden to special interests since he shuns super PACs and sidesteps the influence of mega donors.
That high ground was only reachable because people were convinced of Bernie’s sincerity. It did help that his campaign chose public events over dinners and photo-ops with well-heeled donors in private settings.
The list has become an issue in the race for DNC chairperson, with Keith Ellison (who was endorsed by Bernie) saying he would ask Bernie to give the DNC access to the list. When asked about granting Democrats access, Bernie has reportedly said he would “cross that bridge” once the DNC chairperson had been elected.
Or maybe there's a compromise waiting to be struck. As one former Sanders digital staffer joked in an email, noting that Sanders, via email appeals, had raised more money directly for Democratic candidates than any other politician in 2016, "Maybe the DNC should turn their list over to Bernie?" — Mother Jones