Obama Progressive Escrow Fund

Goal: $1,000,000

Pledged: 727: $108,077

Last week, we asked 1,000 of you to contribute $10 to raise $10,000 to help progressive Democrats like State Senator Regina Thomas defeat "Bush Democrats" like Rep. John Barrow (GA12) in upcoming primaries. Your response was amazing: over 1,300 of you contributed over $60,000!

Now we are asking you to use your money to ensure that Barack Obama lives up to his promise to deliver "change we can believe in. "

How? By creating a progressive "escrow" fund that you control.

Many progressives were shocked last week when Obama flip-flopped on wiretapping immunity for the phone companies with this simple explanation:

"My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."

So if a President unilaterally decides it is in the "security interests of the American people" to defy the Constitution, the Law, and Congress, (s)he can do whatever (s)he wants?

Other Actions

Tell Your Senators: No Immunity for Wiretapping Join the FISA Protest Group at My.BarackObama.com Call Obama's Campaign HQ at (866) 675-2008 press 6 to leave your message. Lots more actions here!

George Bush believes that, as do Dick Cheney and John McCain - and every dictator in the world. How is that progressive? And how is that change we can believe in?

Don't get me wrong: we fully support Obama and will do everything we can to elect him President. But will also do everything we can to protect the Constitution and hold Obama to his promise of real progressive change.

And that's why we are launching our Obama Progressive Escrow Fund. We're asking you to put some of the money you plan to give Obama "in escrow" until he demonstrates progressive leadership on the issues we care about, like warrantless wiretapping.

We are absolutely not trying to hurt Obama - we'll give him our money at some point. We're just asking for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T like Aretha Franklin sang about.

We can get Obama's respect because needs our money - he turned down $ 85 million in taxpayer dollars because he believes small donors like us will contribute $ 300 million. And now is the best time to use our modest leverage, before the campaign goes all-out after the convention.

We are setting an ambitious goal of $1 million, which is hopefully large enough to get some respect.

We are not asking you to give us your money. We only want you to make a moral "pledge" to our informal "escrow" fund. The money remains entirely yours, and we want you to contribute directly to Obama after he takes actions that you believe demonstrate progressive leadership.

(When you eventually decide to contribute to Obama, please use our special Obama Progressive Leadership Fund page on Actblue so we can all see how strong we are, as measured in simple dollars.)

I just pledged $2,300 to the Obama Progressive Escrow Fund, which is the maximum allowed by law. I hope 100,000 of you will pledge as little as $10 so together we get some respect.

Thanks for all you do!

Bob Fertik

Note: to make a pledge, you must create a Democrats.com website account (username and password), which is different from subscribing to our email alerts. When you create your login, you will see "Obama Escrow" at the bottom, where you can enter your informal pledge amount. If you already have a Democrats.com login, click "My Account" then "Edit" then "Personal Information" and then add your pledge in the "Obama Escrow Fund" at the bottom.

While you are visiting your Personal Information page, I hope you'll notice several new features that we recently added, thanks to your continued financial support.

1. Social Network Profile . Do you have a profile at Facebook, MySpace, or another social networking site? If you add the direct link to your profile, other members of Democrats.com will be able to find it. After you login, visit our sample Barack Obama profile. As you can see, we protect your privacy so only your first name, state, party, Congressional District, and Social Network Profile are visible to other Democrats.com members.
http://www.democrats.com/barack-obama-profile

2. Verify Your Voter Registration . In 2006, Democrats.com was the very first website to let voters check their voter registration. We just updated our registration system so you can check once again. If you are not registered at your current address, click here to register today:
http://democrats.com/vote

3. Local News and Neighbors . Would you like to share progressive news about your state, county, or Congressional District? Visit:
http://democrats.com/local
You'll see news that has been posted by other Democrats.com members, which you can click on to read and to comment. You can also post in the appropriate forum by clicking the [Post] link. You can subscribe with the [RSS] links and meet your Neighbors by clicking the [Neighbors] links. If you didn't upload a picture of yourself, click "My account," then "Edit," then scroll down to "Picture." If your Congressional District is wrong, tell us what it should be by selecting "Fix My Congressional District" here:
http://democrats.com/contact

Update 1: Kos independently decided to "escrow" $2300 until Obama shows some progressive leadership.

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald tracked down Obama's advisor on wiretapping, Greg Craig, and discovered he is either stupid or lying. If Craig doesn't understand the issue, he should resign - or be fired!