Mike Turk, writing at techPresident, casts serious doubts on the credibility of the Romney campaign’s claim of $7.2 million raised online ($3.3 million in website donations, $3.8 million in online donation pledges). I won’t recap the whole post, but Turk provides pretty clear evidence through analyzing average donations, donation size, web traffic and simple comparisons between other campaigns online donation successes to make it clear that Romney’s large online donation numbers in no way signify a massive grassroots campaign in support of him.
If you assume the overwhelming majority of of the $3,365,625 in “pure and simple” online fundraising was small dollar donations (which you have to because it takes a lot of $25 contributions to balance $2,300 to get a $100 average), Romney would have to have the most successful Internet fundraising effort ever run by anyone (including Democrats), together with the worst direct mail and telemarketing campaign in the history of politics. (Telemarketing and direct mail donors are typically small dollar gifts) There is no way that number represents “pure and simple” website giving. The math just doesn’t support the claim.
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This is a large dollar candidate, not an Internet candidate. No matter how you cook the books, Mitt, that dog doesn’t hunt, either.
Read the whole post — it’s a reminder that campaigns cannot try to deceive the public about where their support comes from and what it means. In the internet age, these claims are easy to prove false.
Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney
4 Responses to “Mitt Exaggerating Online Fundraising”
because he is finished as soon as thompson enters, and he is pulling out every trick he can think of, his big first quarter came at the hands of his rich friends and mormon church, he will not be up to par at the end of the next quarter.
giuliani, thompson, mccain, will be(in that order) the last 3 standing come primary season
Where on Romney’s donor records does the Mormon church show up? Let’s stick to the facts.
The facts are the there is no “trick” to misrepresenting your fund raising efforts in the way that is being claimed; it doesn’t help his campaign in the least. The analysis that Turk presents makes a whole lot of assumptions and dramatic leaps to conclusions, all in a silly attempt to suggest some kind of wrong-doing.
You honestly think Fred Thompson will be a factor in this race? Watch, if he announces, he’ll flash bright in the pan for a minute, but will drop quickly.
Something to say?
The question is why he would do it? I’m sure one can fudge a little bit, but why turn your unsuccessful fundraising quarter to crap by trying to make your online support seem epic when it’s just good.
Left by Kombiz Lavasany
April 16, 2007 at 10:21am