TechPres’ 2007 Campaign Web Index
TechPresident released its 2007 Campaign Web Index, a survey of “the very brightest minds working in tech and politics,” which includes me, apparently.
The meat of the survey:
Our panel judged Ron Paul and Barack Obama to have the best overall web presences, and they also led their respective fields in the most individual categories. Mike Huckabee and John Edwards followed, with each earning strong support from our panel. But while these four campaigns were the leaders, there were many surprises in specific categories. For example, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney scored the most points for their online rapid response work.
But head on over to see how everyone evaluated the candidates
in 13 tech topics, with excerpted comments from people who responded.
Clinton Polls Her Email List
Hillary Clinton’s online operation is adapting the traditional tactics of polling and direct mail to survey subscribers of the campaign’s email list. Political campaigns have always contacted donors and potential supporters via phone polls or direct mail appeals, but Clinton’s campaign is going one step further, applying similar techniques to obtain a potentially more honest portrait of its email list.
I wrote about this survey on Huffington Post’s Off the Bus, but come take a look at some of my findings after the jump.
In early December, chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn’s private polling firm, Penn Schoen and Berland Associates (PSB), administered a nearly 100-question survey to subscribers of the Clinton campaign’s email list. The list members received an email from PSBSurveys.com, a website owned by PSB that pays people for participating in web surveys. The email, sent with the subject line “Election 2008: Who Would You Vote For?”, asked recipients to participate in a “fun and interesting” research study about their opinions on the 2008 election. The only explanation as to why people received the survey is a sentence toward the bottom of the email: “You received this email because you subscribed to receive emails about politics.”
Penn, Schoen, and Berland Associates is the Clinton campaign’s pollster. PSB took what is currently understood by Internet strategists as an unusual approach for a political campaign’s online survey, emailing a web poll to subscribers of the campaign’s email list without telling recipients that the message or survey questions were from the candidate.
PSB is allowed to send email to Clinton’s email list because each person opted-in to the privacy policy on HillaryClinton.com, which states: “On occasion, we may also use the information that you provide online to contact you for other purposes or to solicit you for contributions.” This sentence is a near-catch-all for any type of communication from the campaign, and there was nothing unseemly about the way Hillary Clinton’s campaign and PSB conducted this survey given this policy.
The first part of Clinton’s web survey asks broad questions about the 2008 election, but about halfway through the survey, begins to ask specific questions about Hillary Clinton, including asking what it would take for the person to`donate to Clinton’s campaign. Throughout the survey, respondents are reminded that answers “remain strictly confidential and [are] used for research purposes only. We will never give or sell your personal information to any third parties.”
The approach taken by PSB stands out among political campaigns’ surveys of its email lists. The Clinton campaign’s purposefully unbranded survey is not an innovation in itself, but it does mark a significant new extension of old politics into the new.
Two great new products from the Sunlight Founation
It’s a busy week for the folks at the Sunlight Foundation, which released two new web apps: Punch Clock Campaign, a Google map mashup of seven members of Congress’ daily schedules; and OpenCongress’ Facebook app to share your favorite bills on your Facebook profile.
Obama’s Support in NH Riding on Facebook - Literally
Obama’s student organizing in New Hampshire is hitched to Facebook founder and Obama staffer Chris Hughes, who all day yesterday drove students to vote absentee in the Granite State’s Jan. 8 primary. The event was organized through Facebook, of course.
More than 500 people were invited to the event, but only 24 people actually signed up for the event online.
With an early Jan. 8 primary in New Hampshire, some students will not have returned from winter break. Obama’s campaign is smartly throwing out hooks before finals start and the semester ends by driving early voters to the polls.
Lifting Voters’ Voices: Dodd vs. Romney
Chris Dodd and Mitt Romney’s campaigns sent similar messages to their supporters yesterday. Both fundraising emails highlighted donors’ notes to the campaign, but the ways each campaign asks for money are almost polar opposites. Dodd’s message highlights people who gave $100 or less and suggests a $25 donation, while Romney’s message encourages people to forward the notes to your “entire rolodex,” and asks for donations of at minimum $80. Join me to take a look at both of the messages.
Following Friday’s forwarded fundraising message from Dodd’s campaign, sent before all the “edits” could be incorporated, Tim Tagaris takes a moment to share some of the notes of support from small-dollar Dodd donors. Here’s some examples from the message, titled “What did you say?“:
For months I’ve filled your email box with two types of messages:
What Chris Dodd is up to on the trail, and how you can meaningfully
support those efforts.But lest you think it’s just us talking at you, we get all kinds of
responses and do our best to read each and every one of them.Here are a few more messages from supporters.
* Steven from Chandler, AZ writes, “Thanks for standing up for our Constitution.”
* Vincent from Burbank, CA adds, “Good luck in Iowa. I hope that you surprise everyone and win.”
* Janice from Germantown, TN included the following message with her
$25 contribution, “We need an electable candidate that supports the
constitution. Chris Dodd can do that.”
All in all, Tim highlights 12 supporters, and includes their first name, location, and how much each donated - from $25 up to $100. Supporters are then asked to donate $25 to Dodd’s campaign.
The message from Mitt uses the same basic principle, but takes a completely different approach to how to ask for money. Mitt Romney’s online team jumped into the plain-text fundraising fracas yesterday, sending their supporters a forwarded email from a donor named Josh Sato. Spencer Zwick, Mitt Romney’s finance director, writes that Josh Sato supports Mitt Romney and wrote in, “I’m feeling anxious…Iowa is just one month away! I emailed the campaign to see what I can do to help.” Mitt’s campaign’s had an answer: a “One Million Dollar Media Victory Fund” to run ads in early primary states. Josh Sato, appreciative of Zwick’s response, sent a message “to his entire rolodex” encouraging people to donate to the media fund.
About that media fund. Here are the four ways that you and your rolodex can contribute:
- $80 to sponsor this ad in Iowa
- $300 to sponsor this ad in South Carolina
- $525 to sponsor this ad in Florida
I don’t know the demographics or giving trends of Romney’s email list,
so they know what they are capable of raising and how much to ask to
get there. But this is an unusually high ask that is not outlined in
the original email. Also, is it so much to ask that you can get a DVD
for $80?
This message was a unique design for the Romney campaign, which usually uses a banner that says “Mitt Romney” at the top of every message, but that was absent in this email. You can see what the plain text version looks like at Politickr. The message has three parts - first, a one paragraph intro that is supposed to be written by Spencer Zwick, Romney’s finance director:
This weekend, a contributor emailed asking how he can specifically help our campaign in the final days before the first caucuses and primaries - and now he’s forwarding my response to his entire rolodex. Please follow his lead. The clock is ticking, and Mitt is counting on us.
The second part is supposed to be written by Josh Sato, the supporter:
The race in Iowa and the other early states is neck and neck. I’m feeling anxious…Iowa is just one month away! I emailed the campaign to see what I can do to help. See their response below, and please consider joining me by supporting the Media Victory Fund today at MittRomney.com/MediaFund.
And then after all of that is the original fundraising message written by Spencer Zwick, explaining what the Media Fund is and why it’s important to donate.
I do not think this was an effective use of the forwarded-plain-text-email fad. First, this is Zwick’s first appearance as a character in Romney’s online presence, which is different from other candidates’ use of this tactic. There is usually one known character, either the candidate or the online campaign person who usually communicates with supporters. Second, neither of the “personal notes” on top of the original email are signed, and you really have to study the email to figure out what’s going on - and that’s not a good way to bring in support for a million-dollar media fund.
There are good reasons why Dodd and Romney are going about fundraising from two different points: Dodd is trailing most candidates in most polls, while Romney is struggling to stay on top, fighting off both Huckabee and Giuliani. He needs a million-dollar media fund, even if he has to make some big asks to build it. Dodd, on the other hand, can free up his campaign to be creative and innovate new approaches to communicating with supporters and lifting up donors - if there was more on the line for Dodd, there’d be bigger asks.