I chipped in just for the "verbal rick roll."

$16.68 donated; that covers you and me both.

OK, I gave ten bucks. Hey, since this is the first comment, do I win the "Cory Doctorow Honorary Donation" certificate?

I got your back Cory. Great cause. Thanks for the heads up.

Also would donate, also not from US....

Done! I went ahead and rounded up to $10, you know, to do my part in slowing down our regress into the middle ages.

$ 16.68 donated, so we're both covered.

Well, heck...the vanity of claiming first bites another fool. Shoulda known there'd be comments in the queue ahead of me.

Is it too late to nominate him for presidential candidate?

I thought abortion was legal.

I like the idea of all of us doubling up on donations to cover for Cory. But as I have a furr'ner for a fiancée, I tripled mine: $25.02.

I donated $25 -- we need more geeks in government, especially in Kansas.

@VONMISES: Abortion may be legal, but the state government can do a lot to make it difficult, and it takes years for the courts to review new laws. And with the current court, it's not certain that onerous restrictions would be struck down.

@#5 posted by rosyatrandom

You're covered, Rosy.

I just donated $20. I hope Sean Tevis is as good as he sounds.

Hrm. This is the first time I've ever contributed to any campaign ever. First time it seems like my two bits might do anything to help anything.

You guys are the best.

In for 25.02, that'll cover me and two canadians.

This link is interesting within the broader context of outside influence on a states election. As much as I think of Kansas as a puritanical backwater it's their state to choose the ethics they live by, no?

I love how the word progressive has been hijacked by so many.

(no, this is no a troll)

It's my home state, so I'll give. Anything to help save the hive mind from too much retrograde evolution. I'll pray that my donation is used well.

I actually did this. I appreciate CRBROWN's comments; the world and the states are getting smaller and this is quite common and usually much less grass-roots (or funny).

http://www.cjonline.com/stories/041804/kan_money.shtml

as one Kansas example.

@17 It may be their state, but that doesn't mean we can't help raise money for someone living there to do the "right thing"

Olathe,Kansas is also the home of a small very right wing religious university (Mid America Nazarene University). I will donate and wish him good luck.

@CRBROWN
The problem in a lot of these states is not that the citizenry are overwhelming in favor of being a puritanitcal backwater. It's just that those who enjoy puritanical backwater-dom have been more politically active. Because of the advantages of incumbency, this creates an equilibrium where individuals who aren't happy about living in a puritanical backwater all believe that they can't do anything to change the fact that they've elected (and continue to elect) a cretinous dinosaur.

Thus it is perfectly reasonable to give such a system an exogenous "shove" to hopefully push it into a new equilibrium.

I've just given a $50 shove.

"it's their state to choose the ethics they live by, no?" Certainly, because they're an independent country that has no effect on their surrounding states, can set no precedents, and certainly would never be influenced by lobbying groups or the larger political scene.

The voters choose. All we can do is help them know there's a choice.

@ CRBrown, in one sense yes...but couldn't laws they pass be used as precedent in other states etc?

Really that is a question I have no clue if they could be? Anyone know?

CR Brown,

Yeah, but isn't it the donors' money to choose which people/states they send it to?

I gave $20. That will cover me and ~1.3981 Lithuanians. Regarding outside influence of elections, if I gave $9,999,980 more I'd just about equal what out-of-state lobbying organizations spent on a recent election in my state.

Wow, Olathe! I believe that was where my mother's elementary school would evacuate to in event of a nuclear war. And I believe that since then it's been well absorbed into the KC metropolitan area by suburban sprawl.

[Upon checking a map, I recall that it was Lenexa, not Olathe, that the school would be evacuated to. This must have been in the pre-H-bomb days when there would be some chance you could survive that...]

Though I have long billed myself a Milwaukeean and a Wisconsinite, as a native Kansan, I will [and did] give Mr. Telvis my financial support. $16.68 to what appears by all means to be a _very_ good cause. Let's do it!

My money's in. I hope he kicks ass, takes names.

I'm also from abroad, so I guess I can't donate. I mean, the USA have always been against intervention in other countries politics, right? Right?

?

I'm in the UK and so can't donate either, but really hope this guy wins.

#18 posted by McTex

"I love how the word progressive has been hijacked by so many."

I'm a Bob La Follette progressive, Tex. Is that pure enough for you?

"Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely. It is commercial, imperialistic, ruthless. It tolerates no opposition.... If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another."
—Robert La Follette

@SALGUOD But isnt that exactly how its supposed to work? The more politically active with the most votes gets to determine the course of government not those with the most money, idealistic yes but without ideals we have nothing.

If the tables were reversed and large blocks of money came in to support an openly racist candidate or advocated killing babies with avocaodes how would that affect your decision?

Done! That just did wonders for my mood. Thanks.

Hey, all you Canucks - feel free to buy some freedom in New Brunswick while you're encouraging progress in Kansas: http://blog.canoe.ca/canoedossier/2008/05/28/price_of_freedom_50_bucks

Was gonna donate but the link isn't working for me :-(

I'm trying to donate, but the site is apparently down.

I'll take that as a good sign, and try back later.

done, done and done. one for me, one for you, and one for boingboing as a whole. thanks for the pointer, cory

Kansans in diaspora unite! Take my money, Sean; I'm sending your link to my entire family.

The site's been Boinged and it's groaning under the load. I'll take that as a good sign.

$16.62 donated. That's 2% of my total savings!

$25 thrown in. The site seems to be getting slammed and has stopped responding between my initial sign up and my blogging about it. You can just as well paypal directly to sean at seantevis.com ...though as I'm typing this I'm realizing you really shouldn't trust some BB comment on where to paypal money. So, you know, go with your instincts.

I want to donate but currently can't. Anyone happen to have the paypal address or something similar?

I am a US citizen (and one-time Kansan) currently living in Germany. I just donated $20 through PayPal no questions asked. There wasn't even a textbox to write a comment to that effect. How the heck is anyone going to know if a non-US citizen donates? It would suck if the burden of proof was on Sean Tevis's campaign. My guess is that no one checks these small donations - can someone in the know confirm this?

I grew up and spent most of my life in Kansas so when the site is back up I will donate. It will be nice to see some true intelligence in the Kansas legislature for a change.

I think you can donate directly through Pay Pal. Here's some relevant info from my payment receipt:

Recipient information

Donations coordinator: Sean Tevis for Kansas
Contact email: sean@seantevis.com

$8.34 x 3000 = $25,020. Setting a fundraising goal of $25K even is all well and good, but I want to know what nefarious plans he has for that extra $20!

Not entirely sure how political contributions work but I know that for a 501c4 policital action committee there are a ton of reporting requirements. We have to get the person's name and also their employer and occupation. Contributions over a certain amt need to be reported and the requirements get tougher closer to the election. I do believe that the burden of proof would be on his campaign. So in order to not screw things up for him I would recommend that non-US citizens not donate for him. If his campaign is small and has few people working on it sorting out these small details could be a big nightmare. We wouldn't want him to lose his chance based on weird campaign finance rules.

Hey all! Thank you so much for your warm and generous support. The site is being hammered way above what I expected. As ROSSINDETROIT has pointed out my PayPal information is:

Donations coordinator: Sean Tevis for Kansas
Contact email: sean@seantevis.com

We're working solutions. Thank you for your patience!

#17 by crbrown /As much as I think of Kansas as a puritanical backwater it's their state to choose the ethics they live by, no?/

No! Are you kidding?

If you see wrong, do something.

Is it OK to allow torture because it's all the way over in Guantanamo Bay? But it would be bad in your town?

Your remark is callous, selfish, tiny-minded and all too common.

Unless you're baiting us, then I fell for it.

I'm all for this guy and his causes; couldn't agree more.

I'm sure Cory was using a bit of hyperbole with the "dirty foreigners" not being able to donate to an American political cause, but the rule makes plenty of sense.

I know sketchy individuals and special interest groups (both in the US and abroad) find ways to fund politicians in other countries who promote their agendas, but I completely understand having a formal rule against it.

It does, however, throw into sharp relief the US government's meddling into foreign affairs. Of course each country needs and wants to look out for its own interests, but it's still wrong.

Interesting food for thought.

Poor guy's been 'dugg'. I went to donate and could not get to his website.

I hope he's collected a bushel of money.

Sean Tavis' site is down, database closed, presumably by his provider (is it one of those that bill by each query made?).

Tip for those seeking to be BoingBoinged, create static pages (html) beforehand. An automated script running in the background can update any relevant bits (how much collected, visitor count etc etc) every few mins instead of getting hammered to a single-line which says "out of order".

Dude, the link seems to be broken now. I was all prepared to send him some money too.

You can still donate through Pay Pal.
See the info posted above.
Maybe Cory can update the post to acknowledge the site's bustitudinousness.

@17 "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." H.L. Mencken

Just donated $10.
My wife is a science teacher and deals with this sort of thing at least once a year when she covers evolution in her bio unit.
It's saddening.

More rational empiricists should run for office.

Go, Sean!

google cache link to the site's front page, which will at least take you to the donation sites.

Use it before it gets stale!

@Tomic...

Are you going for irony with your attack on CRBrown as tiny-minded and callous?

Their post read more as someone thinking outloud than forcefully arguing in such a manner that you savaged them for.

Relax.

I think most of the other people who replied to CRBrown did so in the correct proportion to the original comment.

@CRBrown... it is an interesting thought. I'm sure that many of us on the liberal/progressive/ side of the fence wouldn't like the a bunch of cdesignproponentists from out-of-state meddling on some local election.

I think I come down on the pragmatist side, which is while, ethically, I agree w/ the Mencken quote, the reality is that people will meddle in affairs (for better or worse) outside their own constituency/locale, so its all fair game, so long as you operate within the law.

This reminds me of the disastrous campaign by the British Guardian newspaper in the 2004 election.

For those who didn't hear about it:

The left-leaning Guardian offered to provide readers with names and addresses of registered "undecided" voters in Clark County, Ohio. The idea was for British people to beg the undecideds to vote against Bush, pointing out that much of the outside world can't stand him.

11,000 readers requested addresses so they could to write to American voters. The reaction was pretty spectacular: a huge flood of angry emails asking just who the hell the British thought we were, trying to interfere in their election. Many said that they'd now pick bush just to annoy the writers.

I recently read an interview with one of the editors involved in the scheme. He admitted that the number of angry emails they got was actually larger than Bush's eventual majority in Clark County, suggesting that the Guardian's intervention was a major contributor to Bush's election.

Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/18/uselections2004.usa2
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5138

Donated $25. I dig this guy on so many levels. I agree with all his issues and his raising an internet army of geeks just tickles me. A++, would donate again.

corey is a dirty foreigner? OMG I'm never reading boingboing again.

In 1977, I was in 8th grade and we had a whole course on anthropology, where we basically studied archaeology, evolution, etc. In what I can (in retrospect) imagine the kind of compromise only possible in a smallish (40k) midwestern (progressive) university town in Minnesota (yes, we did elect a wrestler to be our governor...), one day one of my classmates (a Jehovah's Witness) was allowed to get in front of the class and give us a lecture about how this was only a theory, and that there was another explanation for what we were learning, that of Creationism.

Kevin was a good friend, and (again, in retrospect) I have always been amazed that he would be willing to do this in junior high school, where to stand out like a sore thumb was tantamount to encouraging repeated bullying and derisive laughter. His other claim to fame was more in line with junior high mores - he would put a ton of pepper on everything and called himself "Dr. Pepper".

I have no idea if the school board got involved, or what. However, the idea that this whole creationism/science thing was handled in such a REASONABLE way has amazed me ever since.

Oh, those good old days...

While I can't claim to be an expert on federalism, I think the distinction, pursuant to CRBrown's question is one of funding versus voting. Ultimately, political funding can only really be used for the purpose of informing and educating an electorate (or propagandizing, I suppose, to be less generous). If the people of Kansas really are in favor of the values and stance of the incumbent, then the money coming in from out of state should not be able to sway their votes.

These kinds of grassroots campaigns to fund a cause are actually pretty cool, in that they avoid the usual problems of organized funding/lobbying, because the official being supported can't really become beholden to a bunch of semi-anonymous pseudonyms, and thus the money isn't really buying power in the way that one might be concerned it would.

So, in short, while I suppose the "money is influence" dogma of politics holds true generally, in this instances, and instances which are closely analogous to this one, I can't personally see any threats to state sovereignty or the voting process.

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /kansas/thankyou on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

I wonder if that means my donation went through, or not.

Oh well.

suggesting that the Guardian's intervention was a major contributor to Bush's election.

Ya think?

"Republican and Democratic party organisers in Clark County, Ohio, focus of a controversial write-to-a-voter campaign by Guardian readers before the election, agreed yesterday that the newspaper had not played the decisive role in the poll locally.
But Dan Harkins, the chair of the county Republicans, said the campaign could have influenced turnout. George Bush came out ahead in Clark County on a swing from the Democrats, who won there in 2000, of about 3%, in line with national figures.

"Turnout was the highest in living memory at 76.7%.

"I don't want to belittle the Guardian and its influence but the Guardian did not cause a xenophobic reaction here," said Mr Harkins. "What it did was remind people of the importance of the election. It broke the monotony and most people took it in jest ... it energised some Republicans, but it energised the Democrat side too."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/05/pressandpublishing.uselections2004

Oh I just got a reciept, so I guess it did work. Yay.

Good luck to Mr. Tevis.

Setting aside the issue of whether dirty foreigners ought to be able to give money to a campaign, if you are a dirty foreigner -- and you like this guy -- don't do it. I'm guessing this fellow would rather do without the headache of a campaign commercial that he was being subsidized by dirty foreigners.

I'll happily kick in on behalf of a dirty foreigner, but please don't do it yourself.

I'm a dirty foreigner with a question. I understand (from this thread) I cannot directly donate.

I would assume then it is illegal to give money to an American to donate for me?

Obviously, this differs from an American 'kicking in on my behalf' since I haven't sent them any money.

I am correct?

BTW, if I could I would totally send this guy money.

Dont know about legally, but ethically that's real shaky ground. I'm sure he appreciates your well wishes, anyway.

If you still wanna give you could go straight here CC - https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=21172

If you don't trust the link (I wouldn't) I got it by pulling up a cached version of his site on google, the donate buttons still appear to work (3rd party site).

@CRBROWN:
It's done all the time by supporters of both parties. There are limits on how much one person can donate to a particular campaign, so people donate to campaigns in other states/districts that support their beliefs in return for donations in their own areas. I won't speculate whether actual conspiratorial donation trading is going on or whether it is just a Karma thing. In this case I'm going for the Karma and donating.

I would assume then it is illegal to give money to an American to donate for me?

Yes, for the obvious reasons.

Well... I like the guy's style, but after reading his views on immigration via the google cache, I can't donate. I disagree with him on that issue, but disagreeing with a candidate on a particular issue shouldn't kill my support for the rest of his platform or my admiration for his ideals. But the concept of a "renter's license", as he puts forward in his Immigration page, along with his involvement of DHS in his workplace smacks of exactly the same sort of government intervention and privacy violations Cory rails against in "Little Brother". I cannot support that.

Site seems to be down. I live just down the road from this guy and would totally donate if I wasn't a "dirty foreign national." Not sure that has the same ring.

why can't this guy get Saudi royal family money like any other good American political party? Is he a commie or something?

He's progressive. Of course he's a commie!

Out of pure Canadian nosiness I would love to see a tally of how much this guy raised at the end of the day from this post on BOING. This has been the most fun read online all day.

I live in Kansas so you better believe I am donating.

The site is back up. Boy, was that a learning experience! Many thanks to everyone who offered quick, dedicated hosting.

I figure it was down for about two and a half hours, which means I probably lost a lot of donation opportunity, but many people told me via email that they'd come back to help support my campaign. I hope so.

Thanks to you all.

I get 403.

I'll donate whatever it takes so long as I get to kick Cheney into the pit

I am now curious.

Why can't foreigners donate to a campaign? Are you going to seriously suggest to me that no other political candidate accepts donations from international corporations, the Saudi Royal family, etc.?

I can understand they cannot vote. But I have a hard, hard time believing any senator or congresscritter would intentionally shut themselves off from a very lucrative funding source like that.

Or is this done via a money laundering operation where the foreign interest gives some US-based group the money and then said group donates the money to the campaign. At which point, how is this any different then one of us 'Merkins donating what a dirty furrener gives us?

Does anybody have a link to an article that might explain these rules in language I may understand?

According to the stats at 2:22, he's half way to that 600 something record. I am sure he's further ahead in the actual dollar amounts then the graph shows though, since a lot of people have been paying over the 8.34.

IIRC, when I kicked in at 11:30 am EST there were ~ 100 - 125 donors. Now 4.5 hrs later there are nearly 400.

Mr. Tevis, you're going to want to fix your meta tag in your source code; it should read

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

to avoid the rendering errors in the first paragraph of the page.

If you need to contact him:

sean@seantevis.com
913-231-9555
http://www.linkedin.com/in/seantevis
http://twitter.com/stevis

Doesn't seem like he uses his twitter much, but there ya go.

Doubled up on the donation. I really hope this guy wins.

I made it in during a window of functionality, but alas the site is down again...

Here is a DailyKos diary on Sean Tevis, which links back to Boing Boing. Rallying going on there:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/16/12325/4095/749/552517

You can always make a donation directly through Pay Pal, identifying the recipient by his email address.

if you can't get to the site now, it's worth having a look at. I like the guy's earnestness and sense of humor.

I hope he wins, but if he doesn't the effort has value as an experiment in grassroots fundraising.

Yet another double donation - Cory, be honest. It was the red cape in the last frame that sold you, wasn't it?

Hi, after reading that awesome-o-matic comic, I donated $25. The proper e-mail to use for paypal if you cannot get through Sean's pages, is:

sean@seantevis.com

Make the "purpose": Sean Tevis for Kansas

The last update I can get out of his page is that he's at 476 contributors as of 13:45 PDT

I would assume then it is illegal to give money to an American to donate for me?

Yes, but for what it's worth (and I'm not saying anything either way about the ethics involved) there is absolutely zero chance of anyone in authority (a) finding out, (b) caring if they did, (c) doing anything about it to your American friend if they did care, or (d) successfully getting any action past the first judge whose desk it crossed if they did try to do something.

Unless you have no American friends who have already donated less than $2,300 to this guy, I'd say there's nothing stopping you. Laundering six- and seven-figure foreign sums through "soft money" organizations (don't ask) is a rather different manner, although you can get away with that, too.

It is done. Here's $10 hoping that he'll win.

Just in case people want to give this more exposure, here is the Digg link:

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Running_for_Office_It_s_Like_A_Flamewar_with_a_Forum_Troll

I had some trouble finding it, so I went to post it (that was the only way to find it was already posted).

As a fellow dirty foreigner, I hope this gets way past the 3000 donations. Also hope you can get your full website back up so people can get more of an idea of your stances, than just the webcomic (which is all kinds of awesome).

I donated $20. I'm from Oklahoma, and I therefore completely empathize with Sean's plight. Anything that I can do to help local non-fundies/constitutionalists/smart people is money well spent.

I really appreciate the work that local people getting involved in politics are doing. It does wonders for my (seemingly lacking) faith in humanity. As for people saying we shouldn't influence these elections, because we don't live there? I would agree if the local elections were actually local. Here in Oklahoma we routinely have people running for state legislature who receive tens of thousands in donations from the likes of AT&T, Exxon, and the RNC. If it's fair game, it's fair game.

Freakin awesome. I donated too.

I donated the $9.47 that I don't have to save for college stuff. Even though I'm involved in a lot of local politics, this is the most worthwhile campaign I've seen in a long time.

I want to give, but it's /.'d

Donated my 8.34. Would be nice to have a bit more info on Sean, but I'll trust Cory's judgment.

from an earlier thread:

"What is beyond question is the malign impact of Helms's innovation on all subsequent American politics. He inaugurated the age of massive back-door political donations, now euphemistically known as "soft money". In his own 1984 re-election battle, he spent $16.5m, then the most expensive Senate campaign in American history (and the federal election commission twice penalised him for using illegal contributions). Sixteen years later, a New Jersey candidate would lavish $60m on gaining a Senate seat, making it evident how effectively Helms's initiative had opened political office to the highest bidder."

I donated $10.
This is how it's done.
Check out Act Blue dot com for more progressive candidates to support.
We need more and better progressives regardless of who takes the White House.
Obama's drift to the center/right is no excuse for not participating.

Again, thanks to CRBrown for stirring a discussion.

My girlfriend is a math grad student in Kansas State university, so I go there nearly every month (I live in New York). There are many people in Kansas who don't care, and many who are very opposed to the bullshit that the government pushes.

However, a lot of them live in two university towns - Lawrence and Manhattan - where they are shielded from the outside world. The schools there teach evolution, since the professors' kids go there; the environment is multi-national and liberal. So there's almost no need to do anything...

Almost. If no action is taken, scary thing might happen. It is indeed up to the people there to vote, but it certainly is ethically/legally OK to help the guy spread the message across.

PS: The town of Manhattan boasts itself as "the little apple", so I get to fly roundtrips between the apples.

Since I live in the district and Sean knocked on my door to get a signature on his ballot petition, I can vouch for you all that he's a real person. He seemed like a nice guy and a sharp individual, and now I'm impressed to find out that he's also a secret Internet democracy superstar. I'm going to vote for him.

Dammit! He does say on ther rules that

* Donations cannot be accepted from non-U.S. citizens.

So what are the risks (for him) if non-US citizens do?

(From the ethical point of view, I'm here to stay, and it's only a matter of time before I become one. Might as well participate now..)

I made mine a double, and since Cory's been well covered, the extra $8.34 is for any other "dirty foreigner".

Really, aren't we all dirty foreigners at heart?

done. Thanks for the heads up.

I fully endorse this candidate. Fuck yeah.

As another dirty foreigner with an unhealthy interest in US politics, thanks to all the dirty Yanks who doubled up!

$140, because I love an underdog.

As of 12:40 am (GMT-5) he has 1263 donors. Well above the 644 number. If each donor did the $8.34 each he would have $10533.42 USD. I think tomorrow when he wakes up he going to have helped make a change in a small part of the world. I hope he uses it well.

I donated $8.34 not for myself but for someone out there who couldn't. :)

In for