We are now in the final hours before Iowa. In a sense, we are starting to wind down this campaign, at least where the Internet is concerned. Online activity should be reaching a crescendo -- and yet, at this critical moment, it seems like the most of what's clogging my inbox this New Year's are 2004-style fundraising appeals. Welcome to 2008, same as 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004?
I've been there before, and I can see the logic. People respond better closer to election time, opens go up, and unsubscribes go down. Better to concentrate the distasteful fundraising asks when people are actually paying attention. If a candidate scores unexpectedly on Thursday night, you can bet the first thing a Googler will see is an Iowa-special splash page with the ubiquitous red "Contribute" button.
But let me play Devil's Advocate here for a moment. If fundraising response rates go up closer to elections, won't those of other action items go up commensurately? Won't people also be more apt to march to the local office to volunteer, or make phone calls remotely to the early states? If an email generates 50,000 live phone contacts in New Hampshire, is that worth more or less than an extra $200,000 spent on Boston TV? Several campaigns have rolled out calling tools, and yet these are seldom if ever promoted in email blasts. Most of the emails sent in the final sprint to Iowa have asked for money, and it would have been higher had it not been for the holidays and set-piece "weekly update" e-mails.
That points to a troubling breakdown in how the ethos of the Internet failing to change the culture of the campaigns. We have this incredible self-organizing medium that is capable of generating buzz and activity far beyond what a bricks-and-mortar approach alone can muster. And yet the part of it that dominates is the part that takes this incredible energy and converts it to cold hard cash to be funneled through a decidedly un-Internet-like top-down machine. The community that donated the money will have little say over how it is spent, or (in most cases) even the slightest bit of participation in the campaign activity they helped fund. The message from most campaigns to you is not: "Take direct action for the candidate." It's, "Let us (the campaign) take action on your behalf by buying media and printing mail."
It's as if most of the campaigns attach zero or little value to the distributed, self-starting activism of supporters -- even if it's folks responding to a non-fundraising action item.
All of this sounds like I hate online fundraising. I don't. I love it. You still need ads, direct mail, and all the functions of the traditional campaign. The fact that none of the Republican campaigns save for one are competing in all the early states, while all the Democrats are, speaks to the fact that Republicans haven't raised enough money to cover the basics.
The point I'm making is that Internet supporters are unlike high-dollar donors, who understand clearly that their role is largely a financial one, and unlike direct mail donors, who represent the mass of your party's supporters (and will, for example, write heartfelt notes back in longhand about the direction of the country, never realizing that the letter they got in the mail was not a personal communication).
The people on your e-mail list are the A-list of your hardcore supporters. They're high on the savviness scale (moreso than traditional low-dollar donors), and collectively will do whatever is asked of them (unlike high-dollar folks, who won't always lick envelopes). If you've got a list of 500,000 names, it's a fairly safe bet that that the list represents something close to your 500,000 most committed supporters under the age of 65 in the entire country. The Internet (and Google!) is too efficient a communications medium for hardcore political junkies to miss your site.
Given this, doesn't it make sense that this kind of audience be given something more meaningful to do than just give money two days out from Iowa? Like help with GOTV? The clock is winding down on the 2008 primary season, and by and large, it does look like we've failed to find a killer app that's not fundraising.
There are some shining exceptions, of course. Mitt Romney's campaign effectively unleashed the medium by letting supporters create their own ads. This crowdsourcing created value that the traditional campaign alone couldn't, using the Internet for it was meant for: expanding the playing field. In a refreshing change from the usual fundraising bat, Hillary Clinton's campaign asked for a million volunteer hours rather than a million dollars, recognizing that the total value of the former exceeded the latter. (Perhaps a Romney-Clinton general, with both candidates already flush with cash, will bring us something more than fundraising asks for nine months.)
And though fundraising is by and large an unalloyed good, we've seen it taken to unhealthy extremes this cycle. Is there any evidence that Ron Paul has translated his $19.5M 4th quarter kitty into a significant footprint in IA/NH, or used it to rise out of 6th place in virtually every poll? Last-minute fundraising can be addictive for the campaign teams that get their fix off ever-rising returns, but it's often too late and too haphazard to do very much good.
Here's a rundown of the last three emails the major campaigns have sent in the last week. Ironically, some of the strongest campaigns on the net have been the worst offenders (Obama, Edwards, Paul -- though the latter doesn't seem to need to send much email). Seven of the nine emails sent on the Democratic side asked for money, while six of fifteen on the Republican side did.
Democrats
Clinton
12/26 - "Braving the elements" - Fundraising
12/24 - "Happy Holidays"
12/20 - "Wrapping paper" - Watch video
Obama
1/1 - "Breaking news: Obama widens lead in Iowa" - Fundraising
12/31 - "Let's do this right" - Fundraising
12/28 - "Our moment is now" - Fundraising
Edwards
12/31 - "Now is the time" - Fundraising
12/30 - "You Can Make the Difference" - Fundraising
12/30 - "You're the best" - Fundraising
Republicans
Romney
12/31 - "Happy New Year!" - Call-a-friend with a Romney pre-recorded message
12/28 - "Romney Week in Review" - Weekly update
12/24 - "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" - Holiday wishes
McCain
12/31 - "Thank You for an Incredible Year" - Fundraising
12/29 - "Spend Primary Night in New Hampshire" - Fundraising
12/28 - "The McCain Update" - Weekly update
Huckabee
12/31 - "Our negative ad" - Watch video & read blog
12/31 - "Meet the Press" - Watch video
12/28 - "Old Political Tricks" - Fundraising
Giuliani
12/31 - "Looking Good" - Fundraising/strategy memo
12/27 - "Surrender Is Not an Option" - Watch video
12/21 - "Merry Christmas & Happy New Year" - Holiday wishes
Thompson
12/31 - "Watch Fred's Video to Iowa" - Fundraising
12/28 - "We did it" - Fundraising thank you/watch video
12/28 - "I spoke with Fred this morning" - Fundraising
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Are these Main National emails or Iowa/NH targeted?
I would think that primary state targeted emails are much more GOTV-centric.
Other than donating money, the only other action an activist not in an early primary state can take right now is to use a calling tool. Maybe the campaigns, through testing this primary season, have deemed that the money they can raise through a single email is worth more than the volunteer hours generated from the call tool.
Also, if I knew that the email I was sending would be read by people who haven't opened an email in months, I would ask them to do the thing that's both highly beneficial to the campaign and easy on the activist (which is to donate money).
The reason campaigns would want to raise money right now isn't because they'll use it directly in IA or NH, but so that they can fund their campaign after these early states, whether it's to continue on, or for most of them, so that they can cover their campaign's shutting down costs and debts when they lose.