Since the beginning of last year, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have burned through millions of dollars to find and register voters. They have spent almost $50 million subsidizing Democratic state parties to hire workers, pay for cellphones and update voter lists. They have spent tens of millions of dollars on polling, online advertising and software development to turn Mr. Obama’s fallow volunteers corps into a grass-roots army.
The price tag: about $400 million from the beginning of last year to June 30 this year, according to a New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission records, including $86 million on advertising. ...NYT
Obama's campaign anticipated the effect Citizens United would have on the 2012 election -- well ahead of time. And they weren't wrong. The mammoth contributions to Republican superpacs are tipping the race heavily in Romney's favor. That's what makes Romney's status -- about 10 points behind the president in many polls -- so interesting. His failure so far to rise to the level of the unleashed (scandalous) support of America's 1% tribe is almost biblical in the face of what Obama is accomplishing with so much less.
But now Mr. Obama’s big-dollar bet is being tested. With less than a month to go before the national party conventions begin, the president’s once commanding cash advantage has evaporated, leaving Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee with about $25 million more cash on hand than the Democrats as of the beginning of July. ...NYT
And it's a measure of Citizens United's obscenity that $25 million is beginning to look like chickenfeed. But even so, according to the Times, “'there is a lot of worry that Romney’s folks are raising so much more,' said one of Mr. Obama’s top fund-raisers, who did not want to be identified as discussing internal campaign business. 'I just don’t think there’s a lot of high-dollar money left on the table.'”
But Obama has another advantage: an early start in "get out the vote" efforts and a huge and effective on-the-ground campaign.
“You can pay for direct mail or TV ads at the last minute, but you can’t shortcut long-term volunteer training programs,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the campaign’s spending strategy. “The relationships we’ve built, the depth of what people know about their communities, our data systems, the training and organization — good luck doing that in less than 100 days.” ...NYT
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Campaigns -- in terms of donations or in terms of organization -- don't always work. There are times when people just get tapped out.
Larisa Thomason is a diehard liberal in a deep-red state, running a feisty Alabama political blog and donating thousands of dollars over the years to President Obama and other Democrats.
But two weeks ago, after opening yet another desperate fundraising e-mail from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Thomason decided she’d had enough: She clicked “unsubscribe.”
“It was a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and I thought, ‘Good heavens, I already got two e-mails from him today,’ ” said Thomason, political editor of the “Left In Alabama” Web site. “You have to think it must work, and they’re just trying to break through all the noise. But it’s just too much to take after a while.” ...WaPo
Me, too. With Sherrod Brown. No more support. And I immediately delete from my emails, unread, the folksy, intrusive pleas.
The messages tend to fall into two broad categories. First, there are the overly familiar, seemingly personal messages that are billed as coming from “Barack” or “Michelle” or “Joe” and are often pegged to a birthday, a dinner raffle or some other gimmick. The campaign issued a flurry of fundraising pleas pegged to Obama’s 51st birthday, which was Saturday, including a contest to attend a special event in Chicago later this month.
One strategist calls them the “stalker pitch.”
“I don’t get to tell you this enough,” starts one signed by the president.
“Me again,” writes Anne Marie Habershaw, the campaign’s chief operating officer.
“Hey,” starts another from Obama. ...WaPo
Go away!
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No, I mean that seriously. Go away!
Curious how many Democrats live on your block? Just download the Obama campaign's new mobile app.
The app, released last week, includes a Google map for canvassers that recognizes your current location and marks nearby Democratic households with small blue flags.
For each targeted address, the app displays the first name, age and gender of the voter or voters who live there: "Lori C., 58 F, Democrat."
All this is public information, which campaigns have long given to volunteers. But you no longer have to schedule a visit to a field office and wait for a staffer to hand you a clipboard and a printed-out list of addresses.
With the Obama app, getting a glimpse of your neighbor's political affiliation can take seconds. ...Pro Publica
