A new way of raising money

September 30, 2007

If you’re politically active, and occasionally donate to a party or candidate, you no doubt receive plenty of solicitation emails. For years, fundraisers have made the email pitches more attention-getting — with lots of colors, graphics, photos, and links. The idea, apparently, is that most emails just include text, and these “jazzed up” emails will stand out.

I haven’t seen any data on this, but my hunch is that visually-intensive emails don’t do much to keep the reader’s attention. Indeed, parties and candidates seem to stuff these emails with so much stuff that it’s a cluttered mess.

Just this week, the trend seems to have gone in the polar-opposite direction. I got this from the DCCC this morning:

Hi Steve,

I know it’s Sunday so I don’t want to take up much of your time. You know me, I like to speak frankly.

Here’s the reality check: This election is far from in the bag. There are 60 Democrats sitting in seats that Bush carried in 2004 and there are eight Republicans sitting in Democratic seats. We have a lot of seats to protect and an historic opportunity to expand the playing field. The resources we have now will determine whether or not we win next November.

It includes one link — no graphic — to the DCCC’s donation page. It’s signed, “Rahm,” followed by, “Sent Wirelessly Via Blackberry,” as if the chairman of the DCCC just wanted to touch base with me this morning.

The presidential campaigns for Chris Dodd and Barack Obama did the exact same thing this week, sending basic, stripped-down email messages, with very casual content. Indeed, one of the principal rules of fundraising is that “enmity sells.” For a Democratic pitch to be effective, the conventional wisdom goes, the potential contributors have to believe that Dick Cheney will come to their home today to do horrible things unless they donate right now.

Politically-engaged people are growing more sophisticated, and are probably turned off by the same old fundraising messages. As a result, we’re seeing less-provocative, and less-extreme, appeals. I consider this a positive development.

Fancy that! I got the same message from Rahm, but it didn’t even register that it was less tarted up than usual. Since I just sent them some cash last night, I only noticed who it was from before trashing it. I find it really annoying when a donation elicits an immediate appeal for more. Just as no tree grows to heaven (except Yggdrasil), so is no well bottomless. Especially since I still have some unresolved issues with the DCCC (what’s the point of electing Dems if they’re gonna vote like Repubs?)

I wish they’d put in a click-able link which would allow me to send a message of my own: “you got as much as you’re gonna get, now piss off”

  • Hi Steve,

    I know it’s Sunday so I don’t want to take up much of your time.

    As you probably know politically-engaged people are turned off by recent Democrat Party Congressional performances.

    For example:

    Censoring MoveOn.org for their NYT’s ad but failing to include a rider that would also censor Rove for his swiftboating of Kerry or for his denigration of Max Cleland.

    Had enough yet?

    Come join us.
    Cut a check to MoveOn.org AND simultaneously quit the Democratic party.
    The sooner the better.

    Thanks Steve!

  • As someone who has been doing fund-raising for the DNC, allow me to tell you that $100 donated today is more valuable to victory next November than $1,000 donated this time next year. That’s because it will be too late to have any impact on what needs to be done now to out-organize the Republicans.

    I participated in a group call with Governor Dean this past Friday, where he said that the outcome of the November 2008 election will be decided by the end of this year. It is all about organization.

    The DNC right now has 150 organizers out working across the country with state and local Democratic organizations, to identify new voters, get them registered, identify problems that will come up in the way the states are organizing elections (too few voting machines in poor/minority districts, etc.), and identify issues that are important to bringing out people next year. The DNC is fighting the lawsuit at the Supreme Court over the Voter ID laws that discriminate against poor/minority voters who are most likely Democrats. The DNC is working at the state levels over the issues of electronic voting machines and the integrity of the vote next year.

    All this stuff is actually more important now than questions of who is or isn’t ahead in the polls for the Presidential primaries, because whoever is going to be the nominee needs and organization that is ready to fight the thugs and get bare-knuckle about it if necessary.

    So, I will conclude by saying it’s a lot more important for you to go donate money NOW to the DNC than it is to Rahm Emmanuel and the DCCC, as important as that is too.

    And if you think you don’t have the money, ask yourself what your country is worth to you, because this election is about taking back America from the traitors.

    You can go here: and make a donation. This is one case were donating early and often is important.

  • As to you, ROTFMLiberalAO, allow me to say that your attitude is exactly why we lost in 2000. Right now, the solution to getting enough of the idiots to stop acting like idiots is to have a 62-seat Senate and a 285-seat House of Representatives. The worst Democrat is better than the best Republican. Worrying about how many liberals can dance on the head of a pin is why the left has been so powerless for most of the 20th Century in America. Right now, the only question that needs to be asked is, are you against Bush and the far right? This is like how the grand coalition against Hitler and the Nazis was organized 65 years ago, and it’s just as important today. We can worry about “purity” in 2012.

  • For me, it’s a good thing…

    …I only translate ascii text in incoming email, and throw away the rest of the message. Makes me wonder how many other people don’t see the pretty HTML or pictures or whatever other garbage has been thrown in the message?

  • Crissa gets it:

    PS: If the Dems had just ten more seats in the Senate, the weak wouldn’t have a chance to vote like Republicans.

    For this, we need party organization. There are at least 10 Republican seats that are “in play” and we need to go after them and that takes party organization.

    http://www.democrats.org

    Please. This message brought to you by a fellow Democrat.

  • I haven’t seen an HTML or RTF email in years, because I only accept messages in plain text format. It has saved me no end of trouble regarding virus and trojan messages.

    If I get a message that isn’t plain text, it automatically goes into the trash can, unless I know the sender.

  • I will give to MoveOn.org, specifically to send a big “fuck you” to the 20 spineless, corporate-lackey Democrats in Congress who voted to censure them.

    Ass-kissing little chickenshits.

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