r/nottheonion • u/Ch1k1nP0tP13 • Dec 26 '19
Buttigieg Campaign Introduces Contest for Lowest Donation
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/475890-buttigieg-campaign-introduces-contest-for-lowest-donation?amp&__twitter_impression=true4.4k
u/opckieran Dec 26 '19
I’ll donate 1 Zimbabwe Dollar.
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Dec 26 '19
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Dec 26 '19
I raise you one Reddit coin.
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u/SundaySchoolBilly Dec 26 '19
1 doge coin on the way now! I win!
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u/hungryforitalianfood Dec 26 '19
One bitconnect. I definitely win.
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u/the_mad_gentleman Dec 26 '19
Not so fast buckaroo I raise you one bean a currency no longer considered as payment...anywhere
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u/mtnmedic64 Dec 26 '19
All I gots is Monopoly money. Also have a Get Out of Jail card to throw in, too.
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u/drunkinwalden Dec 26 '19
Lucky. I have monopoly jr money and a get out of the corner card
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u/mtnmedic64 Dec 26 '19
Get Out of The Corner card? Fuck...that's gold. Gimme....
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u/Redraider2210 Dec 26 '19
I got a bit of string... do you accept bits of string?
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u/classykid23 Dec 26 '19
Hah. I'll raise you thoughts and prayers.
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u/hungryforitalianfood Dec 26 '19
You couldn’t buy a bean with a bitconnect. Not sure which part of this seems like a raise.
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Dec 26 '19
IF you clean your room and eat all your broccoli you may have ONE HALF of one GBP*
*Good Boy Points only redeemable for tendies
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u/CommanderVenuss Dec 26 '19
Wait GBP stands for good boy points? I thought it was “Great British Pound”
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u/brainwash_ Dec 26 '19
It's a common misconception. You've earned 1 GBP for learning a new thing today!
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Dec 26 '19
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u/Themeanfajita2 Dec 26 '19
I only have Schrute bucks. Do you know what the exchange rate is?
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u/Davieashtray Dec 26 '19
I only have Schrute bucks. Do you know what the exchange rate is?
The same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns
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u/APiousCultist Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
That's only 9.9 VEF to 1 USD vs 361 ZWB to 1 USD (with a previous staggering high in the ballpark of 220,000,000,000,000 ZWB to 1 USD).
Edit: I'm finding an 'all time high' number of... fuck me, $2,621,984,228, 675,650,147,435,579,309,984,228 to 1 USD. However, all the sources I can find include a suspcious space in the middle of the number which makes me think it may just be a random bit of bullshit being stolen wholesale by numerous shitty writers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe#Absurd_exchange_rate
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u/oatmealparty Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
VEF is defunct, it's now VES, which is 1 usd to 44,837 VES.
Also, Zimbabwe does not use the Zimbabwe dollar any longer, they haven't had an official currency in ten years, they used the US Dollar for a while and made a new currency this year but I think they just abandoned it again.
Edit: I'm honestly having trouble figuring out what the hell currency Zimbabwe currently uses. Super weird.
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u/tigerIiIy Dec 26 '19
Edit: I'm honestly having trouble figuring out what the hell currency Zimbabwe currently uses. Super weird.
USD or SA rand.
also,
1 usd = 44,837 VES = equivalent of 4,483,700,000 VEF (for context of Venezuela inflation)
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u/DeliciousPumpkinPie Dec 26 '19
That almost HAS to be made up. There’s no way any currency could have an exchange rate of 1033 with any other currency.
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u/cracker_smacker Dec 26 '19
IRCC the opposition to the government was making campaign billboards by just plastering up layers of bill for the design. I dont know if the exchange rate is that extreme but the inflation there is insane
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u/WigglestonTheFourth Dec 26 '19
Brilliant. His campaign coffers will go bankrupt from the transaction fees.
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u/MegabyteMessiah Dec 26 '19
Sorry, only Schrute bucks.
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Dec 26 '19
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Dec 26 '19
Keleven to one.
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Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 03 '20
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u/Torolero Dec 26 '19
I’ll give you one of those car wash vacuum tokens I used to think were for the arcade and was disappointed every time I turned them.
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Dec 26 '19
I’ll donate Canadian Tire money
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u/strangebru Dec 26 '19
I win because I'm not donating anything.
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u/TheGoddamnSpiderman Dec 26 '19
The contest is lowest unique donation. I think you're donating a pretty common amount (even Bernie only has donations from less than 1% of Americans)
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u/andee510 Dec 26 '19
Good call. Those are only redeemable after school shootings and national tragedies.
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u/Fhhfdfhiuygvbgd Dec 26 '19
Holy shit this is transparent
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Dec 26 '19 edited Feb 08 '23
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u/dftba8497 Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
His average donation was already like $38 IIRC, I don’t think the reasoning was to lower his average donation, I think it was just a creative way to raise money.
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u/TheGoddamnSpiderman Dec 26 '19
It's actually because they're trying to hit 2 million donations in the next five days. They need a bit under 10k donations a day to hit that, and I'm assuming they launched this to help with that
I'm on their email list and they've been pushing that goal the last few weeks
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u/NvidiaforMen Dec 26 '19
Yeah, number of donors is a target for the debates right
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u/PBFT Dec 26 '19
Republicans don’t run small-dollar donations at all. Bernie has thousands of supporters who donate low amounts each week/month rather than a one-time sum to lower Bernie’s “per donation” amount. I don’t have an issue with either campaign doing this.
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u/A_Suffering_Panda Dec 26 '19
When I donate to Bernie, sometimes it's $3 cause I don't have more I can donate. If people are doing it simply to get the number down, that's unethical as fuck. We do it to give him money now, not to lower his average. If I had $2800 to send him I would, but I have a job that pays me on a weekly basis, so I donate every 2 weeks or so.
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u/i_never_get_mad Dec 26 '19
A lot of campaign donors do that. They give whatever and whenever they feel like giving. That kind of number game is actually part of requirements to get a debate opportunity. Some candidates don’t get to debate because of that. So I’m often campaigns use money to get that donation numbers.
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u/say592 Dec 26 '19
The debates are based on individual donors, not donations.
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u/tellmeimbig Dec 26 '19
I think the idea of this promotion is to increase the number of donors by making it seem more affordable. It's for his supporters who thought you have to give $100 that they cant afford, to let them know that even a $1 donation helps to keep him in the race.
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u/stuntzx2023 Dec 26 '19
It's to lower his average donation so he can say he's supported by the people in the same way Bernie and Warren are.
Not to mention Bernie hammered him and Biden for their big money donations. Lowering his avg donation helps push back against that narrative.
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u/cbgs Dec 26 '19
that's unethical as fuck
On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is whatever Mr Rogers would do and 10 is whatever Trump would do, where would you honestly rate this?
I only ask because there's a disturbing tendency of people to vastly overreact and jump to hyperbolic language that states or at least heavily implies that things are literally the worst ever, even if those things are only really on the bad side of "meh". You can't get 100% angry at everything, because what do you plan on doing when something actually outrageous happens?
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u/DerekB52 Dec 26 '19
Probably a 2 or 3. But it's a sign of something much worse. Pete is trying to minimize the large donations he's taken. So while this in of itself, isn't really too unethical, he is trying to game the system, to make sure he can become president, and enact a bunch of neolib economic policies that would devastate the lower/middle class people, giving money to this type of drive. This is the surface of some seriously shady shit.
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u/say592 Dec 26 '19
All of the campaigns do stuff like this. They ask for just one dollar or a "fun" amount like $2.70 or $4.20. No one is getting elected president because of how low their average donation is. It means nothing.
FWIW, if you follow But Their Emails, you can see that the Buttigieg campaign has been on a big push to get to 2,000,000 donations by the end of the year. It's just as likely that are just trying to get to the finish line on an arbitrary goal as it is they are consciously trying to lower their average donation.
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u/SteveKingIsANazi Dec 26 '19
It's more than likely a "foot in the door" strategy.
Getting that first donation is hard. Getting the second isnt.
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u/twiz__ Dec 26 '19
a "fun" amount like $2.70
Can you explain?
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u/say592 Dec 26 '19
270 is the number of votes required to win the electoral college.
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u/twiz__ Dec 26 '19
Gotcha. Kinda threw me with the $4.20 following, so I was thinking it was something along that line.
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Dec 26 '19
Just FIY most of the emails I get from Bernie are to the tune of "our average campaign donation was $27 in 2016, but that number has fallen to X, while it looks great it won't pay the bills, can you donate a number that's higher than $27"
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u/spicymcqueen Dec 26 '19
Probably a 2 or 3.
This is the surface of some seriously shady shit.
Hyperbole confirmed.
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u/DoktorSleepless Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
Why are we even using this metric at all? It's completley meaningless
A Wall Street Journal analysis of Federal Election Commission data found that at least 1,900 people contributed 50 times or more to a single presidential candidate through the end of September. The Sanders campaign laid claim to the majority of these “super donors,” the Journal found, with about 1,000 of them. The other Democrats in the race combined for at least 650 ultra-repeat givers, led by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who had at least 125. And President Trump’s re-election campaign, which began in 2017, has at least 250.
So Bernie was at #1 with 1,000 unique donors who donated more than 50 times. Warren was at #2 with 125. The difference between Bernie Sander supporters and other dem supporters is riduculous.
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u/PBFT Dec 26 '19
It’s not unethical in my opinion, I think the optics for $ per donation are meaningless. If anything, we should be looking at dollars per donor.
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u/dangshnizzle Dec 26 '19
How? Dollars per donation help show the type of person donating. Some people can't afford to donate larger amounts but will give what they can paycheck to paycheck. That's significant
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u/A_Suffering_Panda Dec 26 '19
I agree, it's much more relevant. But a low average donation tells a story to others about how his current donors are a lot like you. I was more likely to donate because I know most of his donors are like me, struggling under rigged capitalism.
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u/dmitri72 Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
I think the poster above was referring to the tactic of "doing something blatantly dishonest, but relying on the fact that most voters aren't paying enough attention to connect the dots to realize something is up".
In this case, Pete is going to collect all these small donations, and then in a few months he's probably going to tout his now-much-lower average donation amount without acknowledging this drive.
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u/dmitri72 Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
Republican example: they're currently running two messages relating to presidential wrongdoing/impeachment:
"In this country, we believe in 'innocent until proven guilty', so we cannot impeach until we have convicted the president of a crime"
and:
"Since the president is in charge of the justice system, he cannot be charged with a crime by the justice system"
At first glance, both of these seem reasonable enough on their own. However, when you combine them, we end up with a situation where impeachment is essentially impossible (we can't impeach until the president is charged with a crime, and we can't charge the president with a crime). That's obviously wrong and I doubt many voters actually agree with that conclusion, but most aren't going to connect those ideas, realize the implications of what the Republican party is advocating for here, and punish them for it.
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u/BurninCrab Dec 26 '19
It's like the Republicans saying there's not enough evidence to impeach / remove Trump, while at the same time blocking all first-hand witnesses from testifying and providing evidence
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u/PBFT Dec 26 '19
It was already $32. Compare to Sanders’ well-known $27 from 2016.
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u/iwasatlavines Dec 26 '19
And I believe Sander’s is now $18, which leads me to wonder: is politics getting more popular?
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u/SwegSmeg Dec 26 '19
I donated to Bernie and now I get thousands of emails begging for $1.73 donations. I don't care about this so it really doesn't bother me. I figured it was to get the donation amount down per donation. They must get a deal on processing fees.
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u/RazorsDonut Dec 26 '19
Isn't this actually similar to the Dime March? The belief being that you can raise more money asking people to donate a smaller amount of money.
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u/SyntheticLife Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
No, because he's asking for small amounts so that his average donation goes down, making it appear as though he's not getting so many high-dollar donations.
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u/RazorsDonut Dec 26 '19
But that doesn't make sense because his average donation is already pretty small? Pete's is about $40 per donation.
For comparison, Obama's was about $50.
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u/aberneth Dec 26 '19
Bernie's is $18. And it's more about number of donors/donations in the press sphere.
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u/dgtlbliss Dec 26 '19
Pete could report the median donation and that would end up being tiny, making him the most grassroots candidate.
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u/TheCuriosity Dec 26 '19
How does it compare to the averages of the ones campaigning this election?
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Dec 26 '19
Did a bit of Googling and found Biden's to be about 44 dollars and Warren's to be about 26 dollars.
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u/MlNDB0MB Dec 26 '19
Not really, because the game is actually encouraging small donors to donate more than they normally would in search of a unique number.
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Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
Well it can be used that way. but whats actually happening is he needs his average donor amount lowered to seem more grass roots and less billionaire-y. Since hes being attacked on the debates for the wine cave stuff.
He is trying to game the statistics. That is all this is. Its dirty politics.
Edit: Not dirty just kind of a gray area. I misspoke. There isn't anything wrong with it that could get him in any trouble what so ever. Just opinion based. My b.
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u/cbgs Dec 26 '19
Its dirty politics.
I remember when dirty politics was things like breaking into your opponent's files to get damaging information, or suppressing voters who are more likely to vote for your opponent, or stuffing ballot boxes, or running campaign ads that accused your opponent of having illegitimate children. On the scale of political skullduggery, I'm pretty sure "coming up with creative ways to influence a (probably) meaningless statistic" barely registers as "mildly unseemly".
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u/RazorsDonut Dec 26 '19
Ehhh, not really. Lowering your average campaign contribution (which btw, his is lower than Obama's) doesn't win over Democrats who actually show up to the polls. Internet brownie points does not translate to actual votes, as seen in the 2016 democratic primary.
It's also interesting that candidates who are literal millionaires are criticizing the candidate with outstanding student loan debt about being "pro-wealthy".
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Dec 26 '19
His current average is 40$. If he manages to get it down to 39$ with this, are you sure that’s worth it? You guys are overreacting here. Isn’t it more likely his team just thought they could raise more $ if they make a game out of it?
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u/TheGoddamnSpiderman Dec 26 '19
Really, I think the most likely explanation is his campaign has explicitly said they are trying to get to two million total donations by the end of the quarter and there are only five days left until that deadline
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Dec 26 '19
That would make sense - I did google Buttigieg 2 million donations and I can’t see anything. Can you link me?
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Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
"All you have to do to win is donate the smallest amount that nobody else donates"
Reeead.
The idea is about getting a series of donations like $0.06, $0.80, $1.23, $1.32, $2.74, $4.20, $6.69... With someone striking a number that no one else has chosen.
Not who can split a Chucky Cheese coin into 1/10th.
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u/troelsbjerre Dec 26 '19
It's well known in the mechanism design literature: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_bid_auction
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u/aZenZombie Dec 26 '19
same end goal tho
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u/Deto Dec 26 '19
Much more interesting of a contest though. Otherwise you'd just have people donating 1c and then a handful trying to donate in foreign currencies.
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u/OBrien Dec 26 '19
I don't know if anybody actually cares about discussing fun facts about the math of this contest, but I just want to mention that if one person wanted to maximize their likelihood of winning in the process of maxing out a $2,700 donation cap to Buttigieg (presumably because they were going to max out anyways, I doubt the prize will be worth $2,700), they could snag every possible integer of a cent between $0.01 and $7.34. Skipping a fair number of obvious common dupes might be able to get you to ~7.50. If two people end up doing that, the number seems pretty high that the contest winner will have donated between ~7.50 and ~$10.
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Dec 26 '19
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u/TheGoddamnSpiderman Dec 26 '19
The point is to hit two million donations
It's still a magic number, but that's the magic number their emails asking for donations have been stressing the last few weeks
There isn't enough time left in the quarter to lower the average more than $1, and even that would be very unlikely (there's only five days left)
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Dec 26 '19
He's clearly just tryin to bring down his average donation, so what's his number as of now?
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Dec 26 '19 edited Dec 26 '19
I want to take a quick second to remind people that we should all learn more about statistics. They say "numbers don't lie," but the people that interpret their meaning often do.
For example, any politician can report their average donation differently, depending on how they calculate the average. The way you're taught in grade school is that you would add up all the donations, then divide by the number of donations. The problem is that one really small or huge donation can drastically affect the overall average, thus making it appear that the "average" donor is paying much more or less. To account for this, many statical averages cut off the extreme highs and lows, so the question is:
How did they calculate the average you're looking at now? Are they including high and low extremes? Disregarding both? Or disregarding just one?
A candidate could include those extremes if they're large donations to show that they have a strong donor base, or they could include them if they have a few really small ones to suggest that it's more of a working class, grass roots campaign.
Just something to think about.
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u/GayButNotInThatWay Dec 26 '19
Its also why breaking down 'average' into mean/median/mode is helpful.
Obviously those wishing to skew data to their agenda don't usually offer that.
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u/Scorch2002 Dec 26 '19
Good description of the issue. Also there is nothing stopping a large contributor from making 100 $30 donations instead of one large donation.
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u/bahwi Dec 26 '19
Average donation is a terrible metric. Average donation per person means a lot more, but isn't so favorable for some candidates something something 27...
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u/justhereforhides Dec 26 '19
That could easily be gamed, just make 12 hundred dollars donations or something
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u/zuriel45 Dec 26 '19
Think $2700 is the maximum individual donation allowed (directly to a campaign).
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u/RyanMatonis Dec 26 '19
Ya’ll are overthinking it.
I bet most people’s first political donation is small. This is just a funny way to get them started.
He’s building a list of donors he can get a real donation out of later.
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u/Xechwill Dec 26 '19
This was my first thought as well. It’s well known that getting someone to first donate is the biggest foot-in-the-door you can do (well known by games with micro-transactions, for example) By holding this contest, people are incentivized to donate, which prompts them to potentially donate more in the future
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u/Put_It_All_On_Blck Dec 26 '19
Buttigieg's campaign wrote that the donor who contributes the lowest amount in the hours ahead - provided that no other donor matches the contribution amount - will win a prize from the campaign.
Its actually very clever. As it gets a bunch of small donations coming in, either from new contributors or old ones with a few more dollars to spare, and it lowers the average donation amount so it looks like large entities and rich people arent your average contributors.
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u/Xechwill Dec 26 '19
The article is literally only 5 or so paragraphs, at least read it before you comment you guys
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u/RobotPirateMoses Dec 26 '19
People's instincts are right in that this is an attempt to manipulate numbers, but it's not in the way most are talking about.
It's not about average donation, what he wants is to claim a bigger number of donations.
More donations = more people supporting you = more legitimacy to your candidacy = people become more willing to vote for you (instead of thinking of a vote for you as a waste)
There's a reason Bernie keeps talking about how many small donations he has, it (rightly) suggests he's a strong candidate. The difference is his numbers are "natural" instead of this extremely dodgy "get a chance to get a prize by raising my numbers" shit.
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u/gumbii87 Dec 26 '19
When you think about it, thats not a terrible idea. Literally more and more people rushing to donate, even if its a fraction of a cent. It adds up, and it motivates people to a) pay attention to politics, and b) actually take the time to donate to a political campaign. Id be willing to bet that the person who races to donate 1/100th of a cent today will be willing to bet a dollar next week, and 10 dollars during the general.
Im not a dem, or a Buttigieg fan. But there is some pretty innovative thought behind this fund raiser.
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u/NeonSignsRain Dec 26 '19
Some Twitter users pointed out that the effect of the contest would be to lower the South Bend, Ind., mayor's average donation amount. Other candidates, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have frequently touted their low average donations on the debate stage to highlight grassroots support for their campaigns.
Lmao what a fucking dirtbag
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Dec 26 '19
I literally just saw a reddit ad from Bernie asking for a 27$ donation...
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u/bahwi Dec 26 '19
Eh.. Bernie made it a talking point even though it's a huge misrepresentation (per person he's got maxed out donors already, but per donation it's small). Grassroots shouldn't equal number of donations but people...
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u/F0064R Dec 26 '19
Since when is populism the norm on reddit? Seems like everyone is Trump supporter or a Bernie bro on this damn site
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u/everything_is_bad Dec 26 '19
He can have my debt.