Dear Party of Democrats

I am a Democrat, but there are two issues that have held me back from donating to party organizations since 2016. Instead, I have donated to individual Democratic candidates who align with my values.

The two issues are:

• Super Delegates
• Lack of concrete effort to fix campaign finance (in my view)

I see the Super Delegate issue has been dealt with and now they will only vote in the case of a tie. I'm pleased about that. I also see that your platform has included campaign finance reform on your website. I'm not sure if you have updated the platform or if it is the same written commitment it has always been.

What disturbs me is I recently (perhaps a month ago) received a survey to find out what people care about most, as far as issues. I believe it was your survey and the survey completely left out campaign finance reform and amending the Constitution to overturn Citizens United. Those are my top issue as I believe they are the core corruption in our political process that prevents all other issues from being resolved or makes them near insurmountable.

I absolutely care about many other issues, but as long as money corrupts our politics then it is unlikely those issues will be resolved. Even if they are, it will come at a high price to the public as both Citizens United and Big Money corruption cause polarization in our political parties. So the fact that you omitted these issues from the poll makes me question your dedication to these issues.

If I am remembering incorrectly about the content of the poll, that it was your poll, or if you have since published another survey that includes Citizens United and Campaign Finance Reform, then please do correct me and point me to details about the poll. That will help assure me as to your commitment on these issues.

My vision is that all Big Money should be removed from politics. All lobby groups should be prevented from lobbying congress. That doesn't mean special interest groups shouldn't exist. They should. But they should lobby the American people and educate the American people. The American people then should communicate their priorities to Congress. Lobby groups should never be allowed to touch Congress. Congress is there to represent the People. That is the way it should work in a democracy where the power is supposed to ultimately reside in the People and the People's Voice and the People's Will should drive Congress.

Additionally, right now our political process is such that an ordinary citizen of ordinary means would find it near impossible to run for a major elected political position. If these positions require a means threshold, then this feeds into the average citizen’s suspicion that all politicians are corrupt in some way. Citizens view it that the ordinary citizen with average means must align with some source of Big Money in order to be successful in politics. Therefore their very success means they are someone corrupted by Big Money. So it is essential that citizens see a path for ordinary citizens like them to become successful politicians without Big Money support. It isn’t enough to fight Big Money, but you must show the average citizen that this means threshold has been removed, leaving the door open for any good citizen to be successful in politics. This requires both policy change and public education.

So I really want to hear back from you and understand more fully what the Democratic Party vision of Big Money, Citizens United, Campaign Finance Reform, and Lobbying is. I want to know specifically why you would leave such crucial elements off of a public poll. I also want to know how you see the average citizen of average means making it in politics.

I am a dedicated Democrat and I strongly believe in democracy. I would like to donate directly to you and I will do so as soon as I confirm your goals align with mine. Otherwise, I will continue to reach out to individual Democrat candidates who I know align with my values and support them independently.

Let me be clear. I am not an Independent and never will be. Though I sympathize with the Independent movement, I feel it is the wrong strategy. I believe the correct (and far more effective) strategy is to pick a party and to lobby the party to change, to fit the moral view of the party members. That is exactly what I am doing and what I intend to continue to do. I am a Democrat and you are stuck with me. The main issues we seemed to diverge on are issues relating to commitment to democracy. Democracy certainly is not, nor ever should be, inconsistent with the Democratic party platform. We can come together on this. You have to make Democrats, like me, happy, to get our full support. It seems you are attempting to do this and I commend you on that. When you do ultimately make us happy, you will be meeting the requirements of many Independents as well and will garner their votes. Additionally, I would like to think that I am able to articulate clearly to you the concerns of a specific set of Democrats who think like me, and this clear articulation will allow you the ability to better respond. So, I hope that this will be a mutually beneficial conversation between us.

I will be publishing this letter to my new personal blog (https://lisannelombardo.blogspot.com/ ). It only has 600 views at this time, but do keep in mind that it is only about 24 hours old. I expect it will grow in size fairly quickly as my personal opinions are prolific and they seem to spill out my fingertips with ease. I am also sharing this letter with my more established author platform where I have a following that will be eager to hear your response. My current followers under my author platform can attest to the prolific nature of my opinions and writings, and I’m sure they are laughing at this last paragraph as they read it.

I will gladly publish your response under both platforms as I am not the only one with these concerns, I assure you.

Warm regards,

Lisanne Lombardo
Citizen of the United States of America
Advocate for Democracy

P.S. You may also enjoy my first post under this new blog. Feel free to share it if you wish.
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