Election Night HQ

The Tower breaks down the e-fund-raising letter, sent out under the signature of campaign manager Terry Nelson on Wednesday, June 27, at 12:10 PM.  Here’s the full text of the mass e-mail, which The Tower received: 

Summer is officially here and I don’t know about you, but to me summer has always been a time to enjoy outdoor activities with friends and family.  No matter what your summer activities may include, I’m sure you’ll want to stand out from the crowd as a John McCain supporter.One way y
ou can stand out is with the official McCain 2008 polo shirt with a generous donation today of $100 or more. With a donation of $150 or more, we’ll send you two polo shirts.As supporters of John McCain, we know that he is the right man to lead our nation as we face tough challenges. Now is the time to stand with the Senator and show our support for him. We know that John McCain is the right man to reduce wasteful spending in Washington, serve as our Commander in Chief and fight for our common sense conservative values in the White House. As his team of supporters, it is our job to ensure he gets to the White House.

Folks, we are only three days away from our next important campaign deadline. June 30th marks the end of the second quarter, and our campaign will be filing our financial statement with the FEC. Your immediate help is needed to meet our goal during these final three days.

Remember that each donation you make, no matter if it is $100 or $1,000, will go toward helping us reach our goal of raising $3 million by June 30th. And with your contribution of $100 or more today, we will send you an official McCain 2008 polo shirt.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

Terry Nelson
Campaign Manager

P.S. Summer is here and what better way to show your support for John McCain than with the McCain 2008 polo shirt. If you make a contribution of $100 or more today we will send you the official polo shirt. We’re only three days away from our next big campaign financial deadline and we need your support to reach our goal of $3 million by June 30th. Join us today! Thank you.

The Tower’s analysis:

This is the first e-fund-raising letter, since Monday afternoon, at about 5 PM.  The one on Monday simply asked the recipient to donate, without the carrot of a polo shirt.  Interestingly, the one on Monday greeted the recipient with the appropriate software-induced first name, but this one did not.

Certainly, the campaign would vastly prefer that donors give, without carrots in return.  Although the campaign is undoubtedly going to profit enormously from every $100 purchase of a polo shirt, it still will cost them something - if nothing else, just the cost of mailing it to the purchaser.  It’s a lot better to just receive funds, and not have any expenses whatsoever.

The offer of the second shirt for a total of $150 was wise (although it does remind the recipient as to how much profit the campaign is making off the deal).

The Tower agrees with the basic idea of providing a carrot for a donor.  A common example of this tactic is the one routinely used by PBS, which sells DVDs of its own programming at inflated prices - but at least this way the donor (whether to PBS or Senator McCain) is getting something out of the deal.  Certainly, if a donor was going to donate $100 or $150 anyhow, he/she would vastly prefer getting a polo shirt or two in return, than nothing.

In addition, the shirts provide more free exposure to the campaign.  A donation with no carrot - although it costs the campaign nothing - also provides nothing in the way of exposure.  The donor will undoubtedly wear the shirt frequently.  And in doing so, he/she promotes the campaign and discussion of Senator McCain’s candidacy.  It will be a conversation starter as to why the donor is wearing it, why he/she supports his candidacy, etc.

However, The Tower is very puzzled as to why the campaign provided not a single detail about the carrot - the polo shirt - that the recipient is being asked to purchase for $100 (or two for $150).

Moreover, providing this information could have been done very easily-

Accordingly, The Tower believes that this oversight weakens the overall effect of the e-mail.  

Do you have a question about campaigns, politics, etc.?  Or do you have information to pass along?  Or both?  The Tower welcomes all replies and/or commentary, positive or otherwise.  You can contact The Tower at tower@campaignia.org.

Come visit the main site  - www.campaignia.org  - for more about Campaign 2008 and campaigns in general.