This just over the transom, from Kate Kendall (NCLR Exec. Director), closely followed (in more or less the same language) by Geoff Kors (Equality California Exec. Director):
On Tuesday, the other side reported donations of $2.2 million, dwarfing the $255,650 we reported, and called on their donors to contribute another $3 million.
With this enormous sum of money they are buying every available ad space on TV in California to blast even more of their hateful lies and prevent our messages from being seen.
Unless we raise $3 million in the next three days we will likely lose.
Kate added:
A campaign donor recently told me that their gift was five times more than they had ever given and suggested that everyone do the same. I am pledging to raise $100,000 each day, and Sandy and I are draining the household emergency fund to make the largest contribution we’ve ever given to a political campaign.
And I’m asking you to increase your gift at whatever amount you can, so that we can match the other side on the air.
So. It’s back to the family budget talk for the beloved and me, to figure out what ELSE we can do without. More than separate-but-unequal status for our family.
It was nice seeing the LD fundraising thermometer all cheery and “we did it!” but I am tweaking it a third (and final) time. Rather than pull a sum out of my butt (!), I’m going to set the goal to a dollar less than the bodacious 8against8 gals raised in a cool week. Which leaves us with $3,216 dollars to raise in 56 and a half hours, for an average of a little over $50 an hour. You know, like, including in the middle of the night.
*[D’oh! My East Coast doppelganger and partner in chrome L,D! reminds me: it’s not like this thermometer jobbie is only parked here! So I just bummed out/set the bar higher for the cadre of LD comrades running the thermometer in their sidebars. Ooops! Do you want to post one of your own? WRITE ME AND I’LL COUGH UP THE CODE, you won’t even have to ask me twice.]
A gal can hope. And at least we can each of us try really, really hard to do everything we can. We are at the friggin’ wall here, the 20th wall in a marathon. And we are so, so very close to a win.
For one thing I can guarantee I’m going to produce a “WE DID IT!” or “WE TRIED!” holiday greeting card, with some No on 8 imagery in the background. I promise to sell them at minimum markup. And for everyone who dug ’til it hurt, we can arrange it so I can purchase your cards for you at zero CafePress markup. Hey, it’s something.
For another thing, I know that No on 8 is extremely fast with their turnaround on these internet donations. Whatever you give now, you can be assured is on the ground or on the air within 24-48 hours. If they get it by Friday midnight, I can guarantee you they will spend it on the election, before election day. I’m sure that’s why they have the heat on for a Friday deadline.
Now excuse me while I take my kids on an afternoon walk through the neighborhood to go rummage for dropped coins.
And now, watch me donate another $100, fresh from the belated “wedding gift” sent to us from our ever-lovin’ chums in Haifa (yo, Ayelet! Ofer! yo!).
See? If you’re out of the country, and can’t donate, SEND ME A FRIGGIN’ WEDDING GIFT, MAN!* That is straight up legit, no question about it. I’ll even send you a digital pic of our wedding party on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall, suitable for stashing in some random file on your computer and forgetting about in a week or two.
*Not kidding. I got me a PayPal account. Ask LD regular and Canadian ally SheriBheri how nicely it worked. Thanks, Sheri! Okay, so we didn’t buy the toaster with your wedding gift $$ after all! But it went to a worthy cause!
PS Also, I recognize that by upping the ante, I’m obligating myself to publish another big ole thank you list, like before when we got to $5,000.
Stand by for that one tomorrow or so. I can’t do four posts in a 24 hour period or Child Protective Services will be paying me a visit.
My god. Is there no end to their funding stream?! I can attest to that whole paypal thing working out. One of my blogging pals donated to me and I turned it over to No on 8. Worked like a charm.
As an eighth-year grad student sinking into debt further every minute, I’m not throwing money around these days (or this decade), and every dollar I give will have to be paid back with interest.
The way I see it, though, is that I am paying off another debt here: the debt I owe to the suffragists who fought for our right to vote, the debt I owe to the women who fought their way tooth-and-lacquered-nail into the academy, the debt I owe to all women who have lived bravely and expanded what women are allowed to do and be, the debt I owe to all people — male and female and some of each — who came before me and fought for my and others’ rights.
Plus, I like watching the thermometer numbers change after I donate.
Wow! That thermomenter thingy has gone up since I last logged in! Good news.
The LOVE TRAIN is kicking some fundraising ARSE, is what it is.
Want a thermometer for your site? It’s yours! Gratis!
And Reno: I will totally buy you coffee the next time you’re in town at your favorite local café. Hell, and lunch, too. It’s the least I can do to indicate my gratitude. Would that I could afford the most I would like to do, which is have a big ole victory party in our backyard.
Um, I’m no mathematician but I think we’ve raised over $2,000 in like around six hours. I think.
DagGONE, people.
Way to go.
Also: let me know if you can think of any more clever ways to keep the momentum going.
what’s your paypal account? i’ll chip in, from canada.
I’m a-writin’ you offline, sister! O, Canada!
I’m a bonehead, LD. I can’t find the paypal link. Where is it?
Woo hoo!
We’re over again! Way to go LD and your readers!
(Time to nudge the goal up a bit more, no?)
A spiffy link for Canadian gifts to the LD Love Train, which is what my beloved and I really, really want for our wedding gift, is
RIGHT ‘CHERE.
Secure PayPal page, all ready and waiting for your fabulously enlightened Canadian dollar love.
Oh. And please don’t freak if it takes me a good 24 hrs to get you an email back, showing you proof positive of your wedding gift. I need to get the receipt bounced back from ActBlue, and then I need to remember to send it over to you. But I will.
Delurking again to throw another $100 your way…enough to push us over the goal! I just had a bday and got some cash so Happy 28th Birthday to me I hope we defeat Prop 8!! Thanks again for encouraging me to spend my money the right way. It really is hard to keep giving and finding extra cash, but I just can’t imagine how we’ll feel November 5th if we lose. It’s just too important to my wife and I, and more so now that we are expecting twins. I need to protect my family and we really need this win.
-Lizette
Happy Birthday, LVAmaro! And congratulations on your pending little ones! I couldn’t agree with you more, about November 5th. So, too, evidently, are the legions of equally passionate Yes on 8 folks. The harder we work and the deeper we dig, the harder they work and the deeper they dig, which in turn gets us to work harder, and so on ad infinitem.
I will be spending a lot of time trying to make sense of what all this will have meant, as of November 5. But it’s really clear to me right now that one big huge thing that it is doing is showing all of us (I suppose, on both sides) how very much this matters to us.
Since I see it in terms of love and understanding versus its lack (to be generous, I might even just think the lack is merely of understanding; I certainly hope that’s it), I sincerely hope that more of us are more passionate about love.
Sweetheart, you don’t need to send me a damn thing. A wedding gift is a wedding gift, from our hearts to yours. And I find it particularly appropriate (not to mention heartwrenching) to frame it in that way. We’ll do our best to keep handing the ammo up to you over there on the front line (to queasily enter into the use of war analogies).