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Up and down Mt. Everest: Gary Johnson fundraiser hits target

I think it actually took a few hours into Tuesday morning to get him down off the damn mountain, but 488 supporters of Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson raised nearly $61,000 in a week.  The original goal was $29,035, which was met easily in a couple of days, and then doubled in a challenge to $58,070 ($1 for each foot up and down Mount Everest).

With Federal matching funds, this becomes nearly $122,000.

Yeah, I know that President Obama and Governor Romney are raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

I know that Ron Paul raised something like $38-40 million this year.

So you can look at this as peanuts if you like, or you can look at this as a start in the right direction, the direction of building an actual third party with ballot access across the nation, and a team to go with it.

That's how I see it, and, yes, I was one of the 488 donors.

By the way, since I started writing this post, the number of donors is up to 489.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I would like to donate more than the $249 dollars I have donated to Gary's campaign, but I'm afraid if I do donate more, I will be publicly put on the FEC donor roll list and any person, including future employers, could find out if I've donated to Gary Johnson. Not only do I fear discrimination against me for my choice of president (if a hard core Obama fan chooses to descriminate against me bacuse I didn't back their choice), but the presumption that I smoke pot - which I do not.
Anon,

While I cannot tell you anything I believe would violate the law, here are a few options.

1) The Libertarian Party of Delaware has set up a PAC. We are intending to use it to make a donation to Gary's campaign. Anything you donate to that PAC would not register as a donation to Gary Johnson.

2) I don't know where you live, but in Delaware we have about a half dozen LPD candidates who are going to be spreading the word about Gary along with their campaigns. The same is true in other states. If you donated to them it would not show as a donation to Gary and I seriously doubt that anybody would ever make that connection. In addition, a few hundred bucks would make a dramatic difference to such small-scale campaigns.

3) Gary Johnson has an "Our America" PAC that you could donate money toward. Again, given the profusion of PAC names I doubt any future employer would ever make the connection.

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