Where Are the Goalposts for Online Politics?
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 10th, 2007 2:31 pmBill Beutler is knocking ABC PAC for its fundraising totals and engaging what smacks of some end-zone dancing for ActBlue. This part in particular is the kind of apples-and-oranges comparison I warned about earlier:
Note the figures. Yes, it’s all this cycle. The top 5 presidential candidates on ActBlue have received about $434,000, while all candidates on ABC PAC have collected exactly $298.
Of course, $428,854 of that total comes from one candidate, John Edwards, who is using ActBlue as his exclusive online fundraising provider. If Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Brownback all channeled their contributions through ABC PAC, the numbers for it would look a lot different as well.
Bill does make a fair point: ActBlue is more of a Web 2.0 site, where users can sign up for accounts. There’s a reason for you to come back. It is long established and has achieved a baseline traffic number it will get just by showing up. ABC PAC isn’t quite there yet, something PAC advisor and ex-Ruffini boss Mike Turk was perfectly upfront about:
ActBlue has been in development for two years, and already raised north of six million dollars. To compare the functionality of a site that has been online for less than two full days, and which publicly states it is trying to put together funds for further development to a site like the one ActBlue is today is a bit disingenuous. … Given full funding, full functionality and a full catalog of candidates, ABC PAC has the potential to meet and exceed what ActBlue has done - and we plan to do so.
Bill expected it to be built by now, but speaking as someone with a bit of experience in the development world, these things don’t get built in the final three months of a campaign when all involved were a bit preoccupied with the 2006 elections. Strategically, you want to build these types of things in an off-year, and 2007 is such a year.
Ultimately, I have a bigger complaint to lodge about how outside observers cover the blogosphere and new media in politics: they tend to focus on the small fry instead of the big picture. If there is an apples-to-apples comparison to be made, it’s between ActBlue’s $6,000 towards presidential “draft funds” vs. ABC PAC’s more modest number for essentially the same thing. The salient point, I think, is not that ActBlue won, but that in the world of political fundraising, neither number is very good. $6,000 is nowhere near what ActBlue can do and $298 is nowhere near what ABC PAC shown it can do, to say nothing of the $1-2 billion that will be spent on the next election. Why is that? Because people want to contribute to a living, breathing candidate, not “prospective candidates” who may not ultimately run. A “draft fund” sounds like a cool idea (I was a big fan conceptually) but one that probably doesn’t hold up well in the real world.
To make a broader point of this seems pretty tangential. “Draft funds” are the stepchild of third-party viral fundraising which are themselves less lucrative than e-mail/website based fundraising. The even bigger picture is the campaign’s overall fundraising picture and how a good online performance can upend the dynamics of a race. We need to put the goalposts in the right place. This is not meant to poo-poo the blogosphere/ActBlue/ABC PAC (they are best seen as proxies for what’s going on in a larger universe of online influentials) but to acknowledge where we actually are and to challenge the blogosphere to play an ever-larger role in the process.
Tagged: abc pac 
actblue online politics strategy
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Patrick -
You’re right on the money. The one thing I would argue is this. I think the real power of draft funds will not be in Presidential politics. I think the true power will come from funds that gather money against specific incumbents.
Take your average Senate race as an example. As it stands now, any candidate who would challenge a Senator up for reelection in 2012 is probably not going to start raising money until 2010. By way of comparison, the incumbent is likely going to spend the next 6 years pouring money into his/her Senate account and start with a tremendous cash advantage.
The power of ActBlue or ABC PAC is the capability of establishing and aggressively raising funds against the incumbent. We don’t have to tell you that the money is for the “Draft Bob” movement. We just have to say we’re going to raise money for the conservative that’s going to challenge that good-for-nothing Senator from NY (pick one).
When the candidate emerges in 2010, we can hand them a big freaking check to start their effort. That’s where the FEC decision gives us power over incumbency.
And to your assumption, yes, ABC PAC is building now and plans to be fully featured soon.
I think you may have missed part of my point — after all, I did address Edwards using ActBlue. ActBlue has made itself a site candidates want to be involved with, while ABC has not. You write:
“If Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Brownback all channeled their contributions through ABC PAC, the numbers for it would look a lot different as well.”
Yes. Only they can’t. But hey, if after six months it’s too soon to start wondering if ABC is going to catch up with ActBlue, tell me when I can.
Now Oliver no need for snippiness, I don’t recall seeing John Hawkins post a request for donations to get ABC up and running and I would have been very surprised if he did.
I think it has more to do with the left/right mindset. I think righties tend to want to fund candidates before machinery - unless it’s proven machinery. Lefties are much more likely to form and toss money at activist groups and machinery which in turn fund candidates. ABC and John Hawkins looked at ActBlue and decided it was machinery that worked and decided to put together a conservative equivalent. The ‘08 race is starting early and I expect ABC got caught flatfooted by just how early these things are happening. I’d bet they are running on a shoestring.
[…] The XYZ of ABCBlog PI wonders if and when Republican online fundraising site ABC PAC will catch up with it’s Democrat counterpart, ActBlue. Mike Turk and Patrick Ruffini also weigh in. […]
[…] Continuing the online fundraising discussion (raging here), let’s take a closer look at Obama for America, a PAC that is urging Barack Obama to run and driving through ActBlue’s presidential draft funds (maligned here). […]
[…] Update: For further discussion and debate on this topic, see (in chronological order going bak nearly a week) Patrick Ruffini, Mike Turk, Rob Bluey and Todd Ziegler. […]
[…] And I concur. I’ve been rebuked before for criticizing political sites that weren’t ready for primetime, but we’re talking the launch of a U.S. senator’s presidential campaign here. […]
[…] At least that’s what I gather from Patrick Ruffini and Michael Turk, both of whom criticize Blog P.I.’s Bill Beutler for his recent analysis of conservative and liberal fundraising sites. […]
agenzia di torino…
patrick ruffini :: where are the goalposts for online politics?…
[…] Sure, at one time it was supposed to be. But as this blog and other blogs have pointed out, it’s never had the kind of support such that it should actually be spoken of in the same sentence. Not to mention that several journalists, including Mosk’s colleague Chris Cillizza, have (apparently ignorantly) misrepresented what ActBlue means to different Democratic candidates. […]
[…] I gotta give Rightroots this: It is back. The website languished after the November ‘06 midterms, which I complained about in January, drawing strogn objections from some of those involved. I wasn’t sure that it would actually return, but it certainly has done that. […]