The American Mind

Marc Ambinder reports on Sen. John McCain’s March fundraising. If you’re a Republican who wants to retain the White House in November you should be disappointed.

• $15 million total. $11 million from traditional fundraisers and only $4 million from the internet.
• McCain’s finance team has shifted their focus to raising $100 million for the RNC Victory Fund.
• McCain will take the $85 million in public funds for the general election. That will let McCain continue his attack on Sen. Obama for not committing to public financing. I don’t think it has legs, but McCain does.

It’s been a few months since McCain firmed up the nomination and there hasn’t been a real push to expand his base online. That’s not to say Team McCain hasn’t done anything. Last week, Patrick Hynes covered the “Service to America Tour” on the campaign’s weblog. They target their online advertising well (they appear on TAM). Also, throughout the campaign they’ve released some good videos that look like nothing I’ve seen in previous Presidential campaigns.

They’re doing some good things. But they’re also not raising enough money online. Part of it is from McCain not doing enough to rally the core conservative base, but part of it is due to not trying to build their online supporters list or activating those already on their list. McCain’s Facebook group would have plodded along at 4% growth if Patrick Ruffini hadn’t started an outside group to boost McCain’s numbers.

As for building their e-mail list I haven’t seen a new collection tool since the petition opposing earmarks. It’s stale. There are plenty of current issues the campaign could use to build up their lists: FISA; the faltering economy; and with Gen. Petraeus’ testimony this week, Iraq.

Even with the list they have they’re only making direct fundraising asks. They’re not encouraging supporters to use the online tools available to them. While McCainSpace has been derided it does allow supporters to set fundraising goals and track donors. The campaign has already spent the money on it, they might as well get some use out of it. What would be better is a real-time fundraising counter on McCain’s home page along with a goal. Team McCain needs to use the “video game effect” for their benefit.

If anyone can wage a low-cost campaign to victory it’s John McCain. He won the nomination on a shoe-string budget. However, wouldn’t he have more room for error if he had the luxury of additional funds? By relying more on online fundraising McCain would have more time to do the townhall meetings he loves and talk with the press and webloggers. Getting more online donors means McCain would do what he does best: campaign.

$40 million versus $4 million. Do you think a promise made early in 2007 will stop Sen. Obama from shutting off his valuable small-donor fundraising pipeline? I don’t.

“McCain Raises $15M In March”

UPDATE: In the comments Patrick Ruffini reminds me the $4 million included direct mail. That’s even more depressing. Alarm bells should be sounding at McCain’s eCampaign. Matt Lira has his work cut out for him.