Posted on 03/03/2010 3:33:22 PM PST by Former Military Chick
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”
The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.
In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.
The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.
"What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?" it asks.
The answer: "Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”
Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms.
One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.
The document, which two Republican sources said was prepared by the party’s finance staff, comes as Chairman Michael Steele struggles to retain the trust and allegiance of major donors, who can give as much as $30,400 a year to the party.
Under Steele, the RNC has shifted toward a reliance on small donors, but the document reveals extensive, confidential details of the strategy for luring wealthy checkwriters, which range from luxury retreats in California wine country to tickets to a professional fight in Las Vegas.
The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club. Sources at the event said the presentation was delivered by Bickhart and by the RNC Finance Chairman, Peter Terpeluk, a former ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush.
The RNC reacted with alarm to a question about it Thursday, emailing major donors to warn them of a reporter’s question, and distancing Steele from its contents.
“The document was used for a fundraising presentation Chairman Steele did not attend, nor had he seen the document,” RNC Communications Director Doug Heye said in an email. “Fundraising documents are often controversial.
“Obviously, the Chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable. It will not be used by the Republican National Committee – in any capacity – in the future,” Heye said.
The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides headed “RNC Marketing 101.” The presentation divides fundraising into two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and lays out the details of how to approach each group.
The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”
Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”
Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”
The slide also allows that donors may have more honorable motives, including “Patriotic Duty.”
A major Republican donor described the state of the RNC’s relationship with major donors as “disastrous,” with veteran givers beginning to abandon the committee, which is becoming increasingly reliant on small donors.
The party’s average contribution in 2009, according to the document, was just $40, and the shift toward a financial reliance on the grassroots may help explain Steele’s increasingly strident tone toward the Obama Administration.
While the crude portrayal of Obama may be - as Steele ‘s spokesman put it - “unacceptable,” other elements of the presentation may be of equal interest to close political observers.
The RNC plans to raise $8.6 million from major donors alone in 2010, less than 10% of its total 2009 fundraising take, which was primarily from small donors."
The center of that plan is an extensive, and colorful, schedule of events. Along with traditional fundraisers with conservative luminaries including Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, the party plans to raise $80,000 for a trip to London to meet David Cameron, the British Conservative Party leader, on September 17.
The RNC’s “Young Eagles” – younger major donors and the only group, according to a major donor, continuing to pull its weight financially – are invited to a “professional bull riding event” in October, expected to raise $50,000, and to a no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Las Vegas the same month, expected to raise $60,000.
The RNC’s aim, according to one section of the document: “Putting the Fun Back in FUNdraising.”
CORRECTION: The RNC raised a total of $81 million in 2009. An earlier version of this story understated that figure.
Great picture and great comment thank you.
We will give a damn and make a difference. Hopefully this is something underhanded and untrue but still better to know and discuss than to avoid.
Or even thought of let alone acted on.
Doesn’t make sense. Why are reid & pelosi puritans?
This is some kind of setup.
The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club.
Amazing how democrats seem to luck into this sort of thing,
like over hearing cell phone conversations etc.
McCain’s campaign ends on 8/25.
Why are you buying into this report? It’s rumormongering without any legit sourcing.
The RNC’s “Young Eagles” – younger major donors and the only group, according to a major donor, continuing to pull its weight financially – are invited to a “professional bull riding event” in October, expected to raise $50,000, and to a no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Las Vegas the same month, expected to raise $60,000.
Fifty or sixty thousand? Piffle.
Obama makes that much each time a brown shoed DU square
drops off a brown paper bag at the White house in the
dead of night.
Ooooh...that was scary and fearful! I am running into my bomb shelter right now.
What a joke.
It happens all the time in the corporate world. People leave extra copies of their presentation in a conference room and nobody thinks to collect the extras, just assume the hotel staff will throw it out.
Bah—Politico just wants to distract from the Dem’s troubles. No story here. If this guy was a real reporter, we’d know about Center for American Progress’s money trails.
The Politico article contains a link to the 72 page (PowerPoint) presentation which may be downloaded as a (PDF) file.
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM136_100303_rnc_finance_leadership.html
Stay on target: Democrats and liberals ARE the enemy.
If true, we will deal with Repubs later, after we sweep out the commie trash in 11-2010.
This smells like a Dem psyops plant to me. NOBODY is THIS stupid in the GOP...at least I hope not.
Granted posting this may legitimize it but still, I am for truth.
I find this odd, did a democrat set this up? Did Politico follow good journalistic techniques sourcing the story?
I am not trying to give it street cred but I am not sure sticking my head in the sand is the right choice but it is curious how this all fell into the hands of dem’s and than Politico.
I don’t mind them either, it’s just sometimes they try to blow things out of proportion (especially Ben Smith) when there really is no underlying story.
so now that we know the basic psychology of fundraising and are so repulsed, does politico and the democratic party think we will now turn to obama, pelosi, reid, et al. and give them another term? don’t make me laugh! politico is simply celebrating their in-depth reporting(dumpster diving)without a clue as to how little this matters to those who despise the democrats.
I have come to detest the Politico. It is just a knee jerk reaction for me now...:)
This President and the democrat party are appalling. Obama is out and out lying and dissembling to our faces, and is not even concerned about it.
On February 19th (I think) he talked about how important Pay-Go is, and how terrible it is to pass legislation without cutting from somewhere else, spending money we don’t have...blah blah blah.
So Senator Bunning stands up and says we should take money from the slush-fund/stimulus bill and put it towards that, and the liberals blow a fuse. See his opinion on this he wrote for USA Today (I can’t stand it either, but I can’t post it here due to copyright...) at http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/03/column-why-i-took-a-stand-.html
They don’t care that we can read what they said only a couple of weeks ago and even play video showing their lips moving. They don’t care. They have found that they can tell baldfaced lies and nobody calls them on it.
The RNC should disown this document and sue Politico for defamation.
Will he? He won't.
A very good friend of mine has been screaming about the march toward socialism in this country for years. And while I agreed with most of what he was saying, I didn’t think we were as close to the brink as we have come since the Unholy Triumvirate of Obama, Pelosi and Reid started their revenge tour on the American People. We better all hope and pray that the Lies and the Arrogance of the Democrats are comin’ home to roost and that Judgment Day is coming in November.
P.S. I LOVE THE GRAPHIC!
I stole that from another freeper...:)
Is it too late to steer our country away from the cliff that Obama and his ilk seem determined to drive it over? I don’t know. I vacillate between optimism and despair in this respect.
The jury is still out...
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