Poliquin Announced Fundraising Numbers/ Campaign Reflections

Earlier today Bruce Poliquin's campaign set the mark for the competition in fundraising. As the newsletter states:

Since entering the race, Poliquin raised $637,128 through 1,033 individual contributions. In the final reporting period, he totaled $360,189 from 575 contributions with 68% of the amount raised coming from in-state sources.

Additionally demonstrating the strength of the campaign's fundraising strategy, Poliquin reports raising $47,421 through his website during this reporting period, and finished an overall fundraising blitz by raising more than $57,000 in December.

Excerpt over. As no other candidate has updated their email followers (or blocked me from receiving the emails) this sets the mark for fundraising. Now he announced 68% came from in Maine. In a perfect world no campaign would have funds, never mind in or out of state. That figure is not exactly good, but I'm not sure if it is comparably better or worse than other candidates. However reporting it shows continued honesty in the campaign.

The December total is either a result of a good campaign or the effect of the Christmas season. Any new tactic they used at the time I'd recommend they use again to see if the effects can be replicated.

For example the $24,000 in 24 days campaign often occurred in the McCain campaign but it was often unannounced to the public. The fanfare with having goals and reaching them wasn't public.

The Bangor office for the McCain campaign was the most consistent with reaching its goals for outreach in phone calls and door knocking. Yet it wasn't advertised. Being in politics I only know this because I patiently learned as much from the process as quickly as possible and was as involved as much as possible, even though I fully knew McCain had no chance in Maine (even though I know he was more qualified, which is why I supported McCain).

Yet we had to go out and work without creating much buzz so that we could reduce the number of physical confrontations (there was an odd spike in anti-Republican violence during the campaign: for example the flag in front of my house went missing a day after we put a McCain sign up in our front window, people's tires were slashed on cars with McCain stickers, someone stole my ticket to the Sarah Palin event at the airport, ect). However we should have announced it, and show all, including violent opposition, that we were successful.

It is ironic that I look back now and see the McCain campaign (which at first was my entry into the political system) and critique so harshly. At the time I was neither in a position to question decisions because I had my own efforts in going door to door and making phone calls to work with. However looking back the ground operation was excellent while the PR department was terrible.

Never hold back for fear of being attacked. To quote Ghandi with paraphrase off the top of my head:

"First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win."




Note to Blogger: Fundraising is a word. So is Obama. Update your spell checker.

Today's American Tragedy

This day is a very dark day in the nation. I no longer feel safe, nor do I have confidence in the value of the stock market, budget reports, spending bills, anything. If it is a number used by anyone in government to support or explain something I now believe it to be a lie.

Timothy Geithner should be in a cell next to Madoff. When I said they were adding zeros to the accounts I thought I was exaggerating the situation with the bailouts. Apparently it is much worse than anyone thought: they erased the zeros in the expense balance.

Guess what else? This happened under George Bush. Yet, Obama promoted him. So not only has he cheated on his taxes, he cheated on the economy too. I want any politician involved in the Federal Reserve to immediately resign. I want the Fed to be audited.

Now whether or not my request to investigate the corruption is heard depends on the action those of you reading this take.

Just go past the advertisement (if you get one) :

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-07/geithner-s-new-york-fed-told-aig-to-limit-swaps-disclosure.html