Time on money v. Time on votes

It is not the candidate who has the most money that wins; it’s the one with the most amount of votes. But, can a candidate focus on getting votes without money?

This past election cycle displayed the Internet’s amazing fundraising abilities. Both campaigns took full advantage of this development, but Kerry raised a substantial amount more than Bush online.

I think Jakob Nielsen’s conclusions as to why Bush did better than Kerry on email newsletters are surprisingly correct.

“As this analysis shows, Kerry supporters were bombarded by repeated fundraising requests, to the extent that many of them probably tuned out the newsletter in the final critical days. Although the Internet is great for collecting money from the masses, there is a limit. Kerry exceeded it.

Bush sent more messages than Kerry asking supporters to get other voters to go to the polls and vote for him. This is a more appropriate use of the newsletter medium because it connects emotionally with subscribers. Being treated as an active participant in the civics process is more motivating than being regarded as an open wallet”.

Kerry raised nearly $82 million from online contributions while Bush raised a mere $14 million. Bush had the luxury of relying more heavily on large donors and did not need to work as hard at fundraising. No doubt, Bush’s strategy was more personal, but I am not sure Kerry had much of a choice. It could be argued that Kerry was behind Bush in fundraising and needed to play catch-up instead of the who has better grassroots efforts game.

Kerry won the battle of online fundraising while Bush won the war or the election.