[EL] Check out Unions ready to send volunteers out for Obama | Fox News

Sat Aug 11 10:38:20 PDT 2012

Volunteers as a campaign contribution is a hard one to decide to place 
on the election reports.  Someone may work for a company but volunteer
for a candidate--something they may not want disclosed.  If an organization 
ask for volunteers for a campaign or candidate--as long as  they can refuse 
then their is no issue.  In any case unions have lots of rules they must follow and
any thing that would get them in trouble like not letting people decline
working for a candidate or party would not be smart. If they providing transportation,
food or lodging that should be considered an in-kind contribution, but if 
people or using their own means to get the location and working as long
as they want on their day's off then it should be strictly their decision to
do so and not calculated as a contribution by the union.

People make contributions to causes or candidates or political parties they 
believe is in their self interest. People tend to volunteer in their self interest 
just like they contribute funds in their self interest.  The lower the person is on 
the socio-economic scale the more likely their sole means of contributions are 
their time and skills.  And people who give money may also give of their time
and skills.

An employee may see it in their self interest to volunteer for a candidate
that their employer favors. If an employer asks employees to volunteer for a 
campaign, party or candidate is that addressed in campaign finance law. The 
issue of in-kind donations are addressed and if the employees are sent
to perform tasks and are paid that would be an in-kind contribution. 

Volunteering or working for candidates is a good civic participatory
function that serves the overall health of a popular democracy.
Without volunteers the cost of campaigning  and conducting elections
even for low level elected office would be impacted.  It would be much 
better for voter literacy and civic education if more people were engaged 
in the process as volunteers.

My over all view is that this form of democracy is hard for a number of 
reasons but the most challenging is getting people to invest their 
time in keeping it going--not just as voters, but poll workers, and 
becoming better educated about the choices they will make on
election day.  Part of know more is doing more--volunteers are
handling campaign material that gives more information and
in the space and spending time with people who are focused
on politics.

If you have not volunteered for an election before 2012 this would 
be a good time to try it out.  

On Aug 11, 2012, at 12:28 PM, Joe La Rue wrote:

> I find it funny that Jerald, in arguing about the value of the contribution, has proved Jim's point. A union sending its members to campaign for a candidate is a valuable in-kind contribution. But most reformers won't see that as a problem, as Jerald just demonstrated. But let a corporation make a contribution up to the regular, noncorrupting contribution limits, and the sky will fall.
> 
> On Aug 11, 2012, at 7:38 AM, Jerald Lentini <jerald.lentini at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Believe it or not, Jim, my intent in criticizing your comment was to point out its lack of foundation and merit, not to "chill your speech." Or is criticism from private parties inherently chilling now, too?
>> 
>> On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 10:03 AM, <JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:
>> One of my assumptions was that this was just for one day's work.  I now see from this
>> Click here: Labor chief Trumka vows stronger ground game for elections - Washington Times  that it is much more than that.
>>  
>> No, I don't know what the going rate for canvassers is.  Maybe someone on the list serve can provide that info.  In any event, we are talking about 100s of millions of dollars for this effort.
>>  
>> And, JR, I know that your name calling is intended to chill my speech (boy, we have seen a lot of that coming from the left these days) but, sorry, it just won't work.  Jim Bopp
>>  
>> In a message dated 8/11/2012 9:29:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jerald.lentini at gmail.com writes:
>> Jim, all else aside, do you really think the value of an in-kind contribution is what the person's normal hourly rate doing something completely different would be, and not the value of the service actually rendered?
>> 
>> Unless you think a canvassing program that happens outside business hours should be valued as an in-kind contribution of what the volunteers would make doing their regular jobs (which are most likely a little more taxing than knocking on doors), then your snark makes no sense.
>> 
>> -JR
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 9:09 AM, <JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:
>>     AFL-CIO to send out 3 or 400,000 volunteers to help Obama.  See
>>  
>> Click here: Unions ready to send volunteers out for Obama | Fox News
>>  
>>     I have always been curious why the "reformers" only focus only on money.  This sure seems like a very valuable contribution to the Obama campaign to me (if this is coordinated, but I cannot figure that out. Anyway the "reformers" say it doesn't matter -- corruption either way).  Many of these volunteers make 30, 40 or 50 dollars an hour, so this is a 144 million dollar contribution to the Obama campaign. 400,000 x 8 x 40 = $144,000,000.
>>  
>>     And the "reformer" scream bloody murder over contributions from corporations of a few thousand.  Jim Bopp
>> 
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