Vol.64/No.24 June 19, 2000
Campaign fund goes over the top
BY GREG McCARTAN
By organizing socialist campaign events, talking with co-workers and union fighters, and reaching out to young people interested in a working-class alternative to the parties of big business, supporters of the Socialist Workers 2000 campaign scored a victory by going over the top in the drive to raise $80,000 by June 4.
Becky Ellis, one of the organizers of the drive in St. Paul, Minnesota, reports that more than $30,000 poured in the final 10 days of the fund drive and that supporters in many cities said they received larger contributions than expected.
The success of the fund means the campaign is on a solid footing for launching the Socialist Workers presidential ticket at the end of the month, starting an intensive four-month effort to present a fighting, socialist, working-class voice in the elections.
Class-struggle events this past week confirm more than ever how important this campaign will be. And they underscore why every dollar contributed to the fund will be well spent in bringing clear explanations of the cause of the assaults by the employers and their government against working people, and the need to organize a revolutionary struggle for a workers and farmers government.
The candidates will meet and talk with workers and farmers in struggle, and spread the facts about each other's battles. The campaign will help set an example of independent working-class political action and uncompromising defense of the interests of working people around the world.
Socialist Workers campaign supporters in Houston completed their share of the $80,000 national campaign fund by sponsoring a rally in the new campaign headquarters on West 8th Street in the Heights area of the city.
The 25 participants heard from Dean Cook, Lea Sherman, and David Ferguson, the three Socialist Workers candidates in Texas. They described the gains made through the petitioning drive to get the names of Congressional candidates Cook and Ferguson on the ballot, and through the successful effort to win more than 50 new subscribers to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial in the Houston area.
Rally participants contributed $1,525 to the national campaign fund. Of this, $1,330 was in new contributions. During the course of the 10-week fund-raising effort, 29 Houston-area workers made contributions.
Steve Warshell from Houston contributed to this article.
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