In 2020 and 2021, I made financial donations to several candidates I personally knew like Raphael Warnock in Georgia, and others whose work I wanted to support. I had no idea what I had just set in motion. Almost immediately, I was receiving emails on a weekly basis asking for another donation. Then I began receiving appeals from candidates I never heard of asking me to support their campaigns. Soon the appeals went from once a week to once every day. Now I am receiving requests all-day, every day for donations from candidates all across the country. Some of them I really want to support. I want to help Democrats running for election to the U. S. Senate in swing states like Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and here in Ohio.
I support all those candidates as regularly and as generously as I can. I have set up an online donation portal through the Democratic Party that allows me to send a donation and receive a confirmation in a matter of seconds. But even their appeals are relentless. I almost hate to open my email, because I know there will be 35-40 requests from those and dozens of other candidates for another donation.
Is this the best way to fund political campaigns?
When I ran as a Democratic candidate for the U. S. Senate in 2000, I spent more time making fundraising phone calls than I did actually campaigning and interacting with potential voters. I did not have the advantage of online donation systems. It was “dialing for dollars” every day. I can only imagine how much more intense the pressure to raise money must be for candidates today, given how expensive running a U.S. Senate campaign has become.
Here are my thoughts on this subject. Private citizens should offer as much financial support as possible to the candidates we hope will win. Dollars and votes are both equally important in our democracy. That is the only way we can prevent our government from being bought and paid for by conservative mega-donors who will then use their lackeys in public office to create policies that favor the rich and marginalize everyone else. We need to understand the problem created by the Citizens United ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court that allows streams of money to flow to certain candidates without revealing the source of those funds.
I will do all I can to push back against the forces of “dark money” in American politics. I hope everyone will do their part. Just understand that once you have given once to the candidate(s) of your choice, you will soon be receiving requests from people you never heard of.
On the other hand, I wonder if we should move toward public funding of certain elections, and some real limits on campaign spending? Other nations have done this with great success.
Maybe we should try it in the United States. That way, democracy will not be for sale and I may stop getting requests for donations from people I do not know, and worse, from people in Alaska, Nevada, Maine, and every state in between who do not know me!
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The Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle, pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, is interim executive minister, Cleveland Baptist Association, American Baptist Churches, USA. He served as president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, New York, from 2011 to 2019.
he views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
