Cam-Pain

The differences between the fund raising efforts within the Romney and Obama campaigns is reflective of their support base and the affiliates and voter characteristics you would expect. Romney is focused on whales while the President is drilling down on the little guy. With the pressure building, particularly in the swing states where spending levels are accelerating, the need for cash has never been higher. Citizens United has given the edge to larger donors which to date have heavily favored Romney. And clearly a Republican appeal to business promising lower taxes for the wealthy and reductions in regulations and healthcare entitlements has only accelerated that segment of society to insure its champion is elected.

Romney and his affinity groups pulled in about $183 million in campaign contributions in May and June, while the Obama forces pulled in a comparatively poor showing of $131 million for the same time period. In July, Romney raised another $101.3 million. Obama is running severely behind. But exactly how do you reach the millions of smaller contributors out there? Political ads send the message but generally do not serve as effective contribution requests. So with fewer whale connections for the Dems, the burden has fallen on old-world phone banks, social media and emails.

The differentials between Obama and Romney are particularly obvious in this arena: “ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative journalism Web site, has collected more than 600 separate fundraising e-mails from the Obama campaign this year, nearly all of them sent in the past three months. The group has tallied about 100 similar messages from the Romney campaign, which is less focused on small-dollar donations… Eager to gain advantage in a tight and expensive election year, political campaigns are drowning their most ardent supporters in a deluge of messages begging for cash. The pleas from Obama, Republican challenger Mitt Romney and a host of other political figures are at turns cajoling, intimate and sometimes downright panicked — all aimed at squeezing another $3 or $300 out of loyal donors.” Washington Post, August 4^th.

With less than three months left in this race, the big question is how many times the President can hound the same “little guys” with messages of dire straits, being outspent, and needing money immediately before that saturation point is crossed. “[P]olitical strategists from both parties warn that campaigns must be careful to avoid alienating their most devoted followers with an endless tide of fundraising e-mails. Almost by definition, those who receive the most donation requests have also given to the campaigns already and, in many cases, are annoyed at being pestered for even more.” The Post.

The situation gets worse for the Obama campaign, where many more of those out of work or underemployed or those at the lower reaches of the economic ladder reside. For them, even the smallest donation can be a hardship. At what point does the message stop being read… and worse, the constant barrage of requests actually turns off the relevant voter from showing up in support in November? Do too many emails cause appropriate recipients to ignore the obvious communications… not even opening or reading them?

The Obama approach has embraced different senders, from campaign principals to strategic committees focused on issues and the candidates. “The messages tend to fall into two broad categories. First, there are the overly familiar, seemingly personal messages that are billed as coming from ‘Barack’ or ‘Michelle’ or ‘Joe’ and are often pegged to a birthday, a dinner raffle or some other gimmick. The campaign issued a flurry of fundraising pleas pegged to Obama’s 51st birthday, which was [August 4^th], including a contest to attend a special event in Chicago later this month…

“[Second] there is the ‘Chicken Little’ approach — deployed with increasing frequency in recent weeks — in which Obama and other Democrats warn of sky-is-falling outcomes if they fail to raise enough money.” The Post. Experts on the Democrat’s side suggest that the emails are so carefully constructed that there is little chance of angering voters to the breaking point. I guess time will tell.

I’m Peter Dekom, and politics is increasingly more about appeasing those with the ability to write big campaign checks than doing what the candidates really believe… deep inside… is right.