If you have been involved in politics or helped with campaigns for any length of time, then you have learned how important money is to the political process.
The old saying that “money is the mother’s milk of politics” is true, but there’s a deeper truth there than just the importance of money, but rather the importance of “early money”.
Just like a mother’s milk helps a child grow, early money helps a campaign grow. And early money attracts more money, because it helps a campaign build the things that it needs in order to be viable. And people like to invest in campaigns that look like they will win.
So what does this have to do with you?
If you want to have a greater impact over which campaigns are “viable” and have a shot at winning, you can coordinate with other conservatives on which candidates should get “early money”.
There are many large groups that do this on the national level, such as the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List and the pro-abortion Emily’s List, (which actually stands for “early money is like yeast”). But these are large national groups focused primarily on federal races.
What’s needed are groups of conservatives who will work together to leverage campaign contributions on the state and local levels, which get far less attention and fewer dollars.
Start a Donation Group
You don’t have to create any kind of formal group or register with any government entity. Just have a group of like-minded conservatives who decide they want to collectively seek out and raise early money for targeted candidates and encourage other conservatives to support them as well.
Adopt some rules in order to target more effectively. For example:
- Agree that you want to identify quality candidates in winnable seats – with good long-term political potential, (such as the school board candidate who could probably win a state house seat in the future).
- Agree that you will only recommend X number of races (in order to concentrate your resources rather endorsing everybody that anybody happens to like). This is critical.
- Agree on a threshold of support a candidate needs to be on the list, (like three-fourths of the group…or even unanimous support).
- Agree that everyone will at least give X to everyone on the list or to X number of candidates on the list.
After everyone has made their own contributions, promote the list to others.
Leverage Your Support
Arrange the list in such a way that it has the campaigns’ mailing addresses and website donation links to make it easy for people to contribute. Then send it to everyone’s email lists with a letter of support over all of your signatures. Post it on Facebook and/or a webpage somewhere. Promote it by linking to it in online ads (even Facebook ads). Finally, you could even give your “group” a name if you want it to look more formal.
Keep in mind that most people are too disconnected from politics to make campaign contributions. Further, of the 18% of Americans who actually do contribute, most of those dollars go to federal or state-wide races – where they have the LEAST amount of political leverage.
An effort like this can help convince people to contribute to conservative candidates that they otherwise didn’t know anything about.
Remember, contributing to good candidates is one thing. Contributing to them early is even better. But organizing an effort to get other conservatives to collectively contribute early is best.
That’s real leverage.
Talk to other conservatives you know about starting a campaign donation group and leverage your impact.
The Thrill is Gone in the Cult of Obama
All the polls are singing in harmony.
According to the latest AP poll, Obama has reached his lowest approval rating ever of 40% and his highest disapproval ever of 59%. More important, 57% now say that he can’t manage the government effectively.
It’s hard to keep a cult going if people think that you are a lousy leader.
On immigration, over 2/3’s of Americans disapprove of how he is handling the issue. In fact, for the first time in a long time more Americans have a favorable view of Republicans on immigration than Democrats, by 29-25% respectively, (a net flip of ten points since May).
Obamacare continues to eat at his political fortunes like a cancer. The latest poll from the Kaiser Foundation showed not only the highest level of disapproval for Obamacare, but the highest jump in disapproval in the history of that poll, with 53% now opposing the law, (an increase of eight points since June). It’s a good bet that personal experience and “word of mouth” advertising are killing it. Add this to the businesses that are now getting estimates on next year’s insurance costs, (and about to take action accordingly), and you get nothing but political headwinds for Obamacare (and its authors) as far as the eye can see.
Regarding foreign policy, (which has been Obama’s best measure with the public), the AP poll now shows outright majorities of between 57% and 60% disapproving of his handling of the major issues of the day; from Israel’s conflict with Hamas, to Afghanistan, to Russia and the Ukraine and Iraq.
Then there is Obama’s latest achievement of presiding over the addition of over seven trillion dollars to the national debt – more than all of our debt from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined, (for a total of over $153,000 per household). Little wonder that the latest NBC News poll shows 76% of Americans believing that their children’s generation will not have things better than they do, up from 60% just prior to the onset of “Hope and Change”.
When people are pessimistic about the future, they tend to lose interest in what you have to say.
The “Too little, too late” award goes to the respondents of the recent CNN/Gallup poll with 53% saying that they would now vote for Mitt Romney, and only 44% expressing support for Obama. This should leave Democrats a little sweaty over whether voters want to send them to DC to support a guy that most of them now wish that they hadn’t elected in the first place.
Most interesting is the flip in support among women, with 52% to 45% now supporting Romney over Obama – almost the inverse of how they voted in 2012, (44% vs. 55% for Obama). Now you know why Democrats keep spending so much time talking about an imaginary Republican “war on women”.
Obama has become so politically toxic that even the Obama-endorsed incumbent Democrat Governor of Hawaii (an Obama “home” state) lost his primary 67% to 31% to a challenger that he outspent by more than ten to one.
Of course all second term presidencies fall prey to diminished enthusiasm. They get mired in either events, politics, scandal or all of the above, and none ever really make much of a comeback once they take a nosedive. People tend to move on. As George Burns once put it, “you can re-light a cigar, but it’s never the same”.
But it’s even worse when your popularity was built on emotion regarding a man rather than ration or reason. When the man ultimately fails (and they always do), what’s left to keep people drinking the Kool-Aid? It’s like an over-inflated market bubble that finally pops.
The politics of emotion are always more prone to manipulation, and can climb quicker and easier than anything built on reason, simply because we are emotional creatures – which is exactly why so many politicians resort to it. It’s the political version of the “Dark Side” which, as Yoda pointed out, is “quicker, easier and more seductive”. But it ends in a bad place.
The Cult of Hope and Change was all about Obama when it waxed and it’s about him now as it wanes. It’s waning because Americans are now well beyond their “emperor has no clothes” moment. And that’s exactly how a cult collapses; people see the leader for what he really is.
“The thrill is gone; the thrill is gone away… You know you done me wrong, and you’ll be sorry someday.”
Someday is fast approaching.