Compass points to Obama

UPDATE: Luke Akehurst is none to impressed with the email I also got from Compass. I wonder whether the email was sent to him inadvertently or Compass was thinking that the condemnation of Akehurst would illicit more donations?

Just because you win a presidential election everyone thinks your a political genius. Clearly people have a short memory as W has won 2 in recent years and even his mother would be pushed to call him a genius. Still the journey of a mixed race candidate from the Illinois state senate to the Presidency in 4 years who has the opportunity to be the most significant president since FDR is one hell of a ride. Obama built his campaign on small donations and raised more than any other US political candidate in history. Compass, the left wing campaign, wants some of the action and has sent out the email below asking for donations to fund a staffer. It will be interesting to see whether in these tighter economic times they will reach their target of £15,000. Personally I think they should go further and spell out more precisely what they want to use the money for and let contributors vote on what campaigns should be run.

Dear Compass member/supporter

I’m writing to ask for your urgent support to help provide the extra resources we badly need to make real change happen.

Please show your solidarity to Compass by setting up a regular donation. We need your support to successfully make the case for a radical progressive agenda by providing us with much needed financial support. Our aim is to raise £15,000 by the New Year to fund a new post in order to increase our organisational capacity in 2009 and add to our small team of just two. Please donate now. If only 300 people give just £50 each we will reach our target. Compass may not have rich millionaire donors, but we have got you! If we reach our target think how proud we can all feel going away for Christmas and then start the New Year with a spring in our step.

Your support makes a massive difference. Individual donations like yours over the summer made our Windfall Tax campaign a massive success when you helped raise over £5000 in just a few days. It was thanks to your amazing support that we were able to use part of that money to employ David who worked with us over the summer – this made a huge difference to our campaigning ability.

In the United States Barack Obama out-campaigned John McCain because of grassroots donations, MoveOn.org have also been able to mobilise on progressive issues in a similar way. In the UK we too can mobilise for real change, but in order to do that we urgently need your help to employ someone permanently to help unlock the full potential of Compass.

We’ve special ‘change’ tshirts and we’ll give one to the first 20 people who donate £50 or more to our staff fund – we’ll then use all the proceeds towards campaigning for progressive change.

This is our moment, this is our time, there are so many issues we want to campaign on – immediately we need to keep up the pressure for a windfall tax, we need to campaign on welfare reform and in the New Year we’ll also be doing work on post offices and housing, but we could also be campaigning on tax evasion or rip off credit or making climate change history. So this is a call for your help to ensure we have a well resourced popular movement for change in the UK.

Please donate now by:

– Downloading a monthly standing order form (Word doc)
– Giving a one-off donation using your credit/debit card (Online)
– Sending cheques made payable to ‘Compass’ to FREEPOST COMPASS (By post)

Show your support now and together let’s ensure we can make a real difference in 2009. Please do it now and don’t rely on someone else to do it.

Thanks in advance for the terrific support you give.

Neal

P.S. If you’ve any problems with any of the links above then go to: http://www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp?n=3548