I'll be honest, since the end of the Hackett campaign I too have received a number of emails from candidates asking me to help them raise money and detailing why their race is the most important out there. I can't remember which post Markos said it in, but I think the worst thing about OH-2 is that it immediately makes campaigns re-focus their efforts on fundraising when it comes to online outreach.
That is such a shame. As a community (or multiple communities), we accomplished so much more than just dropping some dollars in a bucket. Sure, that was huge, but what we accomplished "under the radar" was probably of equal, if not more, importance.
Rapid Response/Research
You all remember the morning that Jean Schmidt had a press conference at 9:30 AM where she claimed she had no idea what Tom Noe (think coingate) looked like and had never met him? Well within three hours Paul Hackett was on the courthouse steps holding a press conference of his own. He waved documents in the air for all reporters to see, detailing an existing relationship between Jean Schmidt and Tom Noe.
Schmidt's assertion probably would have gone unchallenged in the waning days of the election were it not for that research. She got called on it, and was embarassed even further.
And you know where that research came from? The netroots.
Promoting Memes Into the Mainstream Media
By the end of the campaign, the swift-boating of Paul Hackett was operating at full throttle. But do you remember where that all started? It started online with an inocuous blog posting by some idiot who ran against Jean Schmidt in the primary and claimed to advise her on some message board on matters pertaining to Iraq.
OH-2 blog picked it up, and it was still probably destined to remain in the bowels of the blogosphere until it found its way into this community. Atrios picked it up from there, MyDD, Swing State Project (where I cross-posted it) and the rest is history.
The next night Jean Schmidt was on the 5 PM news obligated to distance herself from the allegations.
What might even be more impressive is that multiple Republican outlets (including Rush) took the bait we laid out for them and started to question Paul Hackett's service. Now I was in OH-2, and there was nightly discussion about Hackett's service with valor. I can also tell you from the call-in shows I heard, it really shined a poor light on the Republican party for attacking his service. The media saw it again, and are beginning to learn that attacking service is par for the course in the Republican Party--and that bodes very well for us in the future.
Volunteers
When Bob and I started putting out the call for volunteers, the email boxes and phone lines at the Hackett campaign was basically too much for them to handle. It got so crazy that I am certain the staff wasn't large enough for people to handle the requests and didn't have the experience they probably should have when in Ohio. I don't think that says so much about the campaign, as it does our ability to mobilize in large numbers on the turn of a dime. Online success translating into offline results.
Getting It
I want to share this story in conclusion. The whole time I was in OH-2 working hard online to build a narrative and support for the campaign, I was very very very detached from the "senior level" effort. I sat in the corner and blogged, wrote from the bar down the street, or stayed in my hotel room scribbling away for much of the day.
As time went by, the staff started to come around and recognize that something unbelievable was happening here. I had to go home the weekend before the election for some family stuff, and Bob Brigham flew out to pick up the ball. I implored the staff to give Bob a seat at the table. Next thing you know he was blogging from Paul Hackett's home.
But the real moment of recognition came on election night. While Bob, Matt (from actblue), and I set up shop in our own little Internet "war room" down the road from the senior staff war room, we wondered why none of us were asked to join--had we not shown enough? We all believed there was a role for net, especially in a close election.
Then the results started coming in and the phone call came. Bob and I were asked to join the senior staff along with DCCC and DNC representatives in the war room. There was a stark recognition that if there was a recount, or the election was too close to call for any reason, they wanted to rapid response capabilities on their side.
In the blogs, you might have seen calls for research about Clermont County voting machines and irregularities go out online--they were responded to with great information in a matter of minutes. That was all based on coordination between Bob and I with bloggers across the country putting out the word. When the chips started getting down, the people in that room counted on the bloggers to pick them up if necessary/possible.
As it stands, the election was over and Paul lost, but had he not, the first media cycle would have been owned by the blogosphere. I can promise you that.
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A few months ago I wrote a piece called, "My ATM Pin Number or On-Line Fundraising." After working Jeff Seemann's (OH-16) communications shop last cycle, I thought it was a fun piece to write about Internet fundraising. Specifically, campaigns I had spoken with after the election that only wanted to know how to raise money but really didn't want to listen to the importance of becoming active participants in communities like Kos. I cringe everytime I see a candidate come on here, and in their first posts, keep asking for money (sorry Nick Lampson). I don't know about anyone else, but it is a complete turn-off for me.
This community deserves nothing less than candidates and causes that are willing to engage us. And if they don't, so be it. But I know that I personally cannot wait for candidates to come here and watch their diaries fall into obscurity because they are using the space like it's a billboard, instead of an opportunity to open up a dialogue.
I hope and pray that we are all able to sort out the candidates who are really willing to engage us vs. use us for the $20 contributions in the future. But that is one of the greatest things about this community, or ability to filter out the junk from the good stuff (I think).
If I were to make one final point, it would be that we shouldn't necessarily jump up and down for joy because some junior staffer posts something on Kos or MyDD in the name of their boss. We deserve more than half-assed outreach, and with a few notable exceptions, we have already seen too much of it.
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FWIW, I will re-post the ATM PIN piece that I referenced above and wrote last November.
December 23, 2004
My ATM Pin Number or On-Line Fundraising
Posted by Tim Tagaris
Much has been made in recent days about the Kerry campaign's attempts to withdraw, over and over again, from the ATM machine known as the netroots. Whether it is discussions about the endless fundraising emails to folks in non "swing states," or Kos's contention that, "we aren't going to put out for campaigns without getting something in return;" the topic has been in the blogs as of late.
Kos also said something that I overlooked the first time I read his post, but might be the most important quote in the entire piece.
Did the Dean campaign win? No. But there's a reason people are still loyal to Dean even after Kerry has been abandoned by legions of Democrats. Unlike Kerry's effort, what Dean and Trippi built was the stuff of political movements, and it was built on a foundation of communication.
Maybe John Kerry didn't need a political movement; he needed us for seven months. But only one race every four years is for the presidency, for the rest of 468 seats up for grabs on the Federal level, if you are going to fundraise effectively on-line, you are best served, "building the stuff of political movements."
I chose to write about this because I keep talking to congressional candidates for '06 races that say some form of, "We will just tell them that we are running a progressive campaign and we need grassroots support to raise 'x' amount of dollars in so many days."
Wrong answer...
If you want to withdraw cash using my ATM card (and millions like me), if you want to build that "political movement" on-line, you better know the pin number. John Kerry didn't know the pin number, and 99% of candidates running for office that have now decided to reach out to the netroots don't know it either.
So what are the digits?
Most ATM pins have four digits. For the sake of simplicity, we'll keep it at that number as well; although there is much more a candidate can do if they want to reach out effectively to the netroots.
First Number: Be willing to communicate with us
Campaigns set aside time every week for fundraising calls, block-walking, attending state and county-wide events, but if you want that first digit you need to be willing to communicate with us, directly.
Campaigns should set aside time every week, if not day, to communicate with us directly. That time should be just as important as call-time and block-walking time. Just like a good fundraising director will freak out if the candidate doesn't make 30 calls an hour, the Internet Outreach Coordinator should do the same. Yes, all campaigns should have one of them. And they should have a seat at the table right next to the campaign manager, communications director, finance director, and field director.
The Internet is the only medium available that allows for mass two-way communication. Constituents want to hear from you, and if they can get an answer back immediately, that's all the better. They want to know what is going on in the campaign they are supporting. And you know what? They deserve it.
That means you have a blog affiliated with your campaign, and the candidate posts on it, the campaign manager posts on it, etc... If it is just some unpaid intern that comes in 3 days a week and posts from home, you got a problem there.
Your blog also needs some variety, and should be in a "human voice." I am sure Bob has much more to say about the use of blogs by a campaign. It is a subject that I can go on about for hours.
And that doesn't mean you are just blogging on your own website. "Think outside the webpage." There are already communities that have hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of members. If you are an unknown candidate and believe that people are going to come to your webpage just because you put one up, your thinking is fatally flawed.
And dammit, every communication should not include a link to your contribution page.
Second Number: We want to be involved in the effort
And more involved than just, "hey we need 4,000 literature pieces for the county fair coming up." Sure, it is nice to know what our money is going towards, but in the grand scheme of things, we want some form of "ownership" of the effort.
That means soliciting our ideas and implementing the best of them. The ideas of 50,000 will almost always be better than the ideas of five people who live their entire lives inside of a campaign HQ.
This means giving your supporters in the netroots the tools available to make a difference for your effort. Give them the tools to throw a house party, create a .pdf file for the campaign, listen to them about your message and refine it when necessary.
Take one of the biggest successes of the Jeff Seemann for Congress campaign, "campaign manager for a day." It was a media bonanza for us, fundraising success, it built our email list, drove people to our website in unheard of numbers for a congressional race, and most importantly, got people very excited about our effort in the 16th district of Ohio.
You know how that idea was born?
A bunch of us were sitting around at like 1 AM, having a nightcap (or 5), and talking about how we can simultaneously thank to the netroots for all of their support and give them ownership of the campaign.
The results of the effort speak for itself.
I answered 90% of the press calls for the events, and believe me there were alot. One of the things that got me the most frustrated was when media would ask, "Are you worried they will pick things bad for the campaign? What if they select for Jeff to sleep in until 10 AM?" We even had members of our staff (who shall remain nameless -- while being instrumental in the idea) who said, "we will guide them toward the selections we want them to make."
Wrong answer.
These people in the netroots support you and want what is best for the campaign. They have now become invested in the effort; either financially or with their own time and ideas. I cannot stress enough that to a certain extent, if you want the rewards, you have to let go. It has been my experience that this legion of die-hard activists will not steer you wrong. They NEVER did for us.
Third Number: Opinion Leaders
On-line is no different than off-line in this respect. There are certain opinion leaders that carry alot of sway within a community, the net is no different. For the Seemann campaign, we caught a break. When the whole mercenary flap happened on Kos, Jeff stepped in and placed an ad. Had this not happened, we might have never even gotten our foot in the door -- although I can assure you we would have tried.
And the thing about these opinion leaders is, they are often a fickle bunch. The best of them (in my mind): Jerome, Kos, Matt Stoller, Atrios, Jesse & Ezra from Pandagon understand quite well when someone is just trying to cash in on the netroots and who really "gets it."
They understand it because, for a few of them, they helped invent it. If you think you are going to pull a fast one on them and use them for the supporters, think again.
They all have their own reasons for supporting the candidates they do -- it might be issues, it might be the opponent they are running against, it might be that they are just a great all-around candidate, and it might be something else.
Reach out to them. With the netroots ATM card, their word is just as good as when MoveOn sends out a fundraising email, or DFA does the same.
The opinion leader concept and two-step flow of communication theory holds true just as well on-line as it does off.
Fourth Number: Your positions on the issues/your opponent
I'll combine these two into one because I believe they are both important, and I talked earlier about the Pin Number only having four digits.
If you are a progressive candidate, you are at an advantage on-line. These are communities filled with activists who often believe in positions that candidates might find tough to back.
Let me give two examples: First, you have someone like Jeff Seemann whose liberal (I'm not ashamed of the word) stances on the issues made it alot easier for us to gather a following within the netroots. When people would ask Jeff questions on places like Kos or via email, we had no problem giving them the answer they wanted to hear, while being honest with them at the same time. This helped.
The other example is Brad Carson. Brad had a decidedly centrist stance on most of the issues; even going as far as to align himself with President Bush multiple times on a much watched and discussed debate with his opponent on Meet The Press. People were pissed. Some flat out stopped giving to Carson when they watched the debate, saying he was more Conservative than his Republican opponent.
But Brad Carson was running against a nutcase; Tom Coburn, the doctor who likes to sterilize patients without their consent and then bill Medicaid. Which provides a great segue into my final point -- the opponent...
Yes, it helps if you have a dirt-bag for an opponent.'
I am not sure how many people donated to the Kerry campaign on-line because of the campaign that was run vs. his opponent. Anybody but Bush, right? If it was Final Jeopardy, I would be willing to wager all of my cash that Kerry's fundraising success was in large part due to disgust for the president, and the fact that he was running for the highest office in the land.
But this carries over down the ladder as well.
Take Tom DeLay's opponent, Richard Morisson. Or Katherine Harris's opponent, Jan Schneider. Both of them did relatively well raising money on-line, in large part because of the dislike of their opponents by the progressive community at-large.
So, good news for whoever gets out of the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. If you are running against Rick Santorum, there are plenty of people out there that want to help -- and they are ready to help yesterday.
Take it for what its worth. Just wanted to spit some of my thoughts out on "paper" after spending some time thinking about the Kos vs. Exley debate.
Maybe this information will help candidates in 2005/2006 recognize that support from the netroots is like riding a bike downhill -- if you learn how to do it, can keep your balance, it is the gift that keeps on giving.
Bottom line: It isn't fundraising requests that breed successful netroots fundraising. I would even venture to say that the fundraising application isn't the most important of the potential uses of the Internet.
Unfortunately, right now it's the language that most everybody outside of the netroots speaks in.