In a new fundraising letter to members, the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org conceded Wednesday that it believes President “Obama’s losing.”
“Think Obama’s a shoo-in?,” the group writes in their letter. “Think again. Romney is ahead in a whole series of recent polls.”
MoveOn lamented that in 8 out of 16 national polls released last month, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in the lead. The RealClearPolitics average currently has Obama leading Romney by three percentage points — 47.7 percent to 44.7 percent.
The liberal cheerleading group’s email, however, was more about fundraising than political prognosticating. It asked for donations toward a $200,000 fund to run social media campaigns in the months leading up to the November election.
The email warned that the presidential election will be a super PAC money fight — falsely implying that only conservatives use super PACs — but that online messaging can level the playing field.
“You see, today a single YouTube video can get more attention than a big-budget TV campaign. And people are far more likely to be persuaded by something shared by a friend than what they see on TV. That’s where we come in,” the message explained.
“With a tiny social media team of just four staff and a few interns, MoveOn.org has figured out how to disseminate powerful messages to millions of people through social media. For instance, just one video we publicized on gay marriage alone reached more than 21 million people. To reach this many eyeballs with TV ads, it could cost almost a million dollars.”
According to MoveOn, its social media experts are standing at the ready “to toss a wrench into the conservative spin machine” if the requested $200,000 should materialize.
“It’s an entirely new way of communicating, and MoveOn is proud to be a pioneer. We can’t stop those right-wing SuperPACs from buying their old-fashioned TV ads. Yet. But we can beat them by investing in people-power and staying ahead of the curve in online campaigning,” the letter, penned by Angie, Brandon, Carrie, Linda, and the rest of the team, concluded.