Money Talks

Money talks. It's undeniable. Got the bills you got the power.

Cheap, economical, inexpensive. These are no bywords for a modern political campaign. Washington State is home to one of the most competitive gubernatorial elections country wide at the moment. Before April’s fundraising numbers come out, the Democratic candidate – Jay Inslee – has raised $4,835,145.19 and spent just north of $2 million. 

The GOP candidate – Rob McKenna – has raised $4,008,625.96, and has spent just south of $2 million. 

These two campaigns for the governor's mansion in Washington are basically in a dead heat for fundraising. $800,000 is pennies when the money can roll in by the tens of thousands in a single day. The money currently expended on the path to the governorship are not small numbers but they pale in comparison to what has been generated so far on the Presidential level. President Barack Obama has raised approximately $191.7 million in contrast to the GOP front runner and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney and his $86.2 million.

These are astronomical numbers and it’s early in the cycle. Campaigns are still hiring staff, field efforts are getting fired up, and offices are being opened in strip malls and suburbs across the US. These numbers will only grow. By the way, don’t even get me started on the figures that are coming out of Super PACs at the moment. If 2010 was a cycle with training wheels, they have definitely been removed now.

Where does this money go? And how does it relate to digital media?

ReTargeter, a digital communications firm has a nice blog that cooked up a clever piece of infographic the other day. Digital media advertising buys, implementation of social media to inform voters, and targeted online fundraising have exploded in their use by every campaign. 

The contrast between 2008 and now is an increase many times over. Why the increase? Returning to studies mentioned in earlier posts by Pew Internet, US voters are turning to the Internet for political information, sharing political news, and interacting with campaigns. When the electorate turns to digital venues for news and information, and to social networking sites to discuss political positions and the happenings of the day campaigns need to follow. Pew documented that around 22% of the electorate went to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to discuss politics during the 2010 election cycle, a full 73% went online to get their political news, learn about campaign platforms, and engage with them. 


Neglecting to have at the very least a listening out post on each platform arrests a campaigns to react to news and crises as they break.

 That being said, most campaigns do not have millions of dollars to huck around. Most campaigns don't have large professional staffs and instead are one or two beyond the candidate augmented by a never ending shuffle of volunteers and paid canvassers. How do these campaigns march to the sound of the gun er, Tweet and stay ahead of the game when it comes to digital media? 


Follow the big guns. If Barack Obama's campaign website has buttons that say "Donate" instead of "Contribute", its a pretty good bet he's spent a fair amount of money and time optimizing the wording. 

When Mitt Romney's website engages you immediately with visuals that are easy to share via social media, don't ignore it!

These campaigns have the money, staff, and web traffic to conduct the multi-variate testing necessary to optimize content and strings of pages to boost conversions. Their social media is a mixture of campaign postings and references to volunteers, and their content on social media rarely overlaps. Where is the incentive to follow both Facebook and Twitter if a campaign is going to rehash the same item on both at the same time? 


Money talks. Up ticket races have the money and infrastructure to push the capacity of digital media to translate into volunteers, contributions, and votes that down ticket races do not often have. Campaign websites and social media offer a day to day case study of the current best practices in campaign politics. Like a good Marine once told me, adapt and overcome.