Woo Hooo - $how me da Money !!! (Al Rodgers - 11/1/2006 2:10:33 PM)
Well, that headline may be a slight overstatement - but not by much! It turns out that George Allen, who had the most cash-on-hand ($7.2 million) of ANY potential Republican 2008 contender as of 3/30/06, is now running on fumes. That's right, just as Allen and his pal Dubya have driven the country deep into debt, the once-mighty Allen campaign is pretty much out of cash at this point. According to calculations based on Allen's "cash-on-hand" total as of 10/18, combined with his "48-hour reports" to the FEC, combined with the fact that the Allen campaign still hasn't made its media buy for the closing days of the campaign, combined with the desperate fundraising letter the other day from Senate Majority leader Bill Frist, there can be little doubt about it: Allen's nearly broke.
What did Allen squander his money on? First and foremost, Allen has paid one Scott "Hitler Ad" Howell $7 million to produce the warm and fuzzy ads (the racist "Black Hands" ad being another example) for which Howell is justifiably (in)famous. That's obviously done a lot of good (not!), as Allen's approval ratings have gone downhill faster than Mark Foley's congressional career. Second, Allen has spent $3 million on direct mail, in which he slimes Jim Webb 8 ways to Sunday. Third, Allen has paid his "A-Team" of Dick Wad(hams), Chris La"Swiftboat"vita, Mary "Cheney" Matalin et al. a large wad o' cash. Finally, we have miscellaneous expenses, like perhaps some of the bizarre robo-calls you might be getting the next few days, Allen's "tracker," etc.
Meanwhile, just to provide a bit of context here, the Webb campaign is flush with cash as money pours in like a tsunami. Yeah, that Webb campaign is such a "disaster," huh? And that Allen campaign is such a finely oiled machine. Haha. Yeah, and I've got some nice oceanfront property in Iowa, where Allen wishes he had born, to sell ya! :)
Lowell Feld is Netroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign. The ideas expressed here belong to Lowell Feld alone, and do not represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters.
The people power approach is going to cost Allen a lot more than the robocall. His gamble is that the increase in votes will be worth the extra expense. On a per Allen vote basis it may have a better ROI, but it certainly costs a lot more.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Allen team screwed the pooch on this one as well:
1. They called during the day, effectively wasting part of the advantage of "in-person" calls. The public will likely listen a little closer to a message from a person than a robocall, but it's still too easy (and likely) to hit the erase button. And with the recorded message there is no way to custom sell Allen based on a persons responses. I'm sure they'll get a decent number of people at home, but it sure is a waste of money and effort when huge portions of voters, especially in the NOVA area, are at work.
2. The vaunted GOP GOTV database is seriously out of whack if they're calling me. So Allen has either gotten so desperate that they're taking a shotgun approach (and hit me twice in the same day) or this "super" database is spitting out garbage data and they're believing it. Ha!
I'm happy to see Allen and friends spend their money in such a productive manner. Just remind me not to go to them for financial advice.
By the way that people power is payed for, they are not volunteers . . .
But my point is that Webb has real people calling and leaving messages on phones, and they are VOLUNTEERS: people who care about the candidate not just getting a pay check.
Yeah - those calls may have come from volunteers - thereby saving the big bucks. Although I wonder how strong the Allen volunteer base is. Josh was talking about the 15K strong Webb volunteer pack in the WAPO, but I don't recall seeing any such numbers for Allen.
To Lowell's point - I should have said people making calls is more effective in theory. This effort by Team Allen was not effective.
And I still think the GOP super database is not working very well. No matter who was making those calls, they weren't calling the right person.
More than anything else, I just want to throw a monkey wrench into some of these more public appearances. I can't get after George Bush because he's too scared to come out in public. Felix hasn't figured it out yet. Any takers?
What is going to be Webb's response? Will it be time to play the "my son is in Iraq" card?
I know that Webb detests using that card, but it would be the perfect response when they try that Kerry crap . . . also a good deterrence for them not to do it.
And now my chances are probably nil -- my LTE got published today, with full name et al, so I guess they'll write me off... Sob.