Pittsboro resident George Woolfe is hoping to start a chain-letter reaction for the cause of campaign finance reform. He’s forwarded copies of a letter he sent recently to the Democratic National Committee to 20 of his friends, asking them to forward it on to the same number of their pals.
“I estimate that if this is repeated five or six more times, the DNC will get thousands of e-mails,” Woolfe says. In the spirit of bipartisanship, he’s suggested that his Republican friends do the same with their national committee.
Here’s what Woolfe says in his letter:
Gentlemen:
I am in receipt of your letter requesting a donation, and while I am in complete accord with your aims, I have decided not to make any more contributions until such time as Congress passes an election reform bill limiting contributions. I don’t know of any other way of informing you of my deep-seated belief that the current system is a corruption of the democratic process and that an end must be put to this legalized bribery.
My modest contribution carries no weight when stacked up against the amount of money the corporate sector pours into your coffers, so why should I contribute when a donation avails me nothing? When the time comes that your committee is dependent upon the donations of the general public then our voices will be heard. Our legislators are not listening to the people on this matter. Perhaps they will hear us if we stop contributing. Hopefully our silence will prove deafening.