There Are Right Ways And Wrong Ways To Do Political Fundraising

This weekend you may well have gotten dozens of e-mails from candidates that start with this Beltway claptrap: "I wanted to let you know where we stand ahead of our important third-quarter filing with the FEC. Our Finance Director just let me know that we need to raise another $12,025 in online contributions by midnight on Sept. 30th. This reporting deadline is key to showing we’ve got what it takes to be viable in one of the country’s most exciting elections of this cycle."

I am always saddened when a Blue America-endorsed candidate winds up hiring a finance consultant who sends this kind of fried-shit-on-a-bun out. So this is what I sent to one of our candidates yesterday:

Netroots donors HATE this kind of mindless Beltway messaging. It's beneath you. This ginned-up deadline doesn't address their problems. And they've been seeing the EXACT SAME messaging from the DCCC for a decade. "Our Finance Director just let me know" is what they will get from dozens of candidates this weekend. It is the most inauthentic possible way to address a donor on your list and it is likely to make many people just stop reading (if not unsubscribe). I suggest when you communicate with your list it be about substance-- as it has been almost all the time-- and not this hackish messaging from cocksucking, one-size-fits-all, brain-dead consultants. You should think about firing the firm that created this for you. Said and sent with love.

The first-time candidate, overwhelmed with running his own campaign, agreed with my assessment and asked for suggestions. I suggested to keep these kinds of letters issue-oriented and more about voters' concerns than about candidates' and the DCCC's concerns. It's a delicate balance, though. For them-- if not for us-- this FEC deadline crap is real and they actually do have to raise some money now to win next year-- especially candidates, like the ones backed by Blue America, who have sworn off corporate PAC money and money from executives working for companies that make the Climate Crisis worse.

I told him that the best-- and most effective-- fundraising emails I had ever seen came from Alan Grayson and from Bernie's Senate and 2016 campaigns. (Bernie's current campaign, not so much.) But the e-mail I sent that came this weekend was from Pramila Jayapal. It's a respectful, intelligent note and it sounds nothing like the paint-by-numbers garbage the DCCC and EMILY's List consultants send out by the truckful:

Howie-- even a cursory involvement with politics or current events can feel absolutely exhausting.

We have a racist, authoritarian president who has no qualms about asking foreign powers to investigate his political opponents. Climate change threatens the very planet we live on. States across the country-- with the blessings of this administration-- seek to end reproductive freedom on a daily basis.

And while this radicalism impedes our daily lives, we’re constantly told how “unreasonable” or “impractical” it would be to ensure every American has access to health care or to invest in a renewable energy economy.

We know just how wrong that is. But these battles aren’t won overnight. They’re a process of getting a little closer each and every day through hard work and relentless organizing-- and yes, money plays a bit of a role too.

I’m not here to tell you that your $5 or $10 will be the difference in enacting Medicare-for-All or protecting immigrants from Trump’s deportation force. But it will get us that much closer to the world we want to see.

So if you’re in, make a contribution today. Every little bit truly does help.

Thank you for your support. I’m so glad to be in this fight with you.

In solidarity,
Pramila

I'm not suggesting anyone copy that; it's very much Pramila's individual style and reflects her political personality. But it's a good letter to read as a model. And by the way, you can contribute to Pramila and the other House incumbents endorsed for reelection by Blue America by clicking on the thermometer on the right. It will-- if you click this: "Click here to allocate amounts differently or view all recipients"-- give you a drop down menu that allows you to chose which incumbents you want to give to as well as how much to give to each one you pick. Click on it and follow along. You might say to yourself, "Self, I love the way Ted Lieu stuck it to Trump on CNN this week so he gets $25. And, Ro Khanna has been hammering home economic inequality issues all month I want to give him $25 too. And this Pramila letter is wonderful, so $30 for her efforts. And Jamie Raskin killed it when he was on with Chris Hayes the other day, so another $10 to him. I'm running out of money but I haven't contributed to the Squad all month so here's $5 each for AOC, Ilhan, Ayanna and Rashida. Oh... and that was pretty brave of Matt Cunningham-- in a district where Trump trounced Hillary-- to come out so strong for impeachment, so here's $5 for him too. And I'm broke now so I'll have to catch the rest another time." Have fun.

And by the way, if you would rather give to challengers instead of incumbents-- or as well as incumbents-- here are some who are challenging worthless Blue Dogs and New Dems.