Zack Exley

As if The Bat never happened 29 June, 2007

On this day in the parallel universe of the 2003-2004 cycle, we were all watching history being made. The politics of money in presidential primaries was being turned on its head forever by a daring gamble by Joe Trippi. Or so we thought at the time. None of the 2008 campaigns on either side have attempted to repeat the Dean 2003 miracle. As a result, no second tier candidate will break into the first tier, and Big Money will dominate just as it did in the first quarter of this year.

As we entered these last 48 hours before the June 2003 FEC filing deadline, it had become clear that Trippi’s Big Gamble was, unbelievably, beginning to work. Days earlier, he had stepped outside of the fundraising expectations management game and started up a new game all his own.

Just days before the FEC deadline, Trippi sent an email to supporters in which he came right out and admitted Dean had not raised enough money in the 2nd quarter to be taken seriously any longer (he was only just barely taken seriously as it stood). Dean would, essentially, be out of the running when the results came out.

So Trippi asked Dean supporters to make the impossible possible: to turn the dark horse, no-chance, insurgent candidate into the winner of the Money Primary–to show for the fist time ever that grassroots donors could over power the lobbyists, the lawyers and the CEOs. Specifically, he told them (in a series of emails that kept pushing the goal higher and higher) that if they donated an additional several million dollars in the last days of the quarter, that Dean would blow past the expected fundraising totals of John Kerry and John Edwards, the two leading establishment candidates. He told Dean supporters that this was a fool proof way to use the establishment’s own stupid rules against it. The media would have to anoint Dean the new frontrunner if he beat the current frontrunners at their own money game.

Many inside the campaign thought Trippi’s gamble was crazy. They didn’t believe supporters would or could donate what was needed. The gamble would dramatically raise expectations, precisely when the campaign should be doing everything it could to lower them.

Because, and only because, Trippi was the campaign manager, and not an “Internet guy,” he had the power to pull the trigger and go ahead with his gamble.

The Internet team created a special graphic progress meter for the gamble: a baseball player holding an inflated bat. (“Hit one out of the park for Dean!”) The bat quickly became a rallying point for Dean supporters. Posted and reposted on the campaign blog and other blogs, and always available and (mostly) up-to-date on the campaign’s contribution page, the bat was the physical symbol of how much supporters had accomplished and how far they had to go. The bat induced many supporters to give over and over again.

Two days before the deadline–which is right where we are today–it was clear that the gamble was working. Dean had caught up to where Kerry and Edwards were rumored to be, around five million dollars for the quarter.

From this point on, every donation became an offensive, rather than a defensive move. The grassroots simply couldn’t believe that it was winning at the Big Money game it had always loathed. The effort gained new momentum as thousands who had just given gave again.

Many staff at all the other Democratic campaigns were glued to their screens on that Sunday and Monday, the last two days of the quarter. They couldn’t control themselves. Many Kerry and Edwards staff especially were overcome with dismay. Laws of politics which seemed as predictable as the laws of physics had been suspended–it was like someone shut off gravity. Others couldn’t help but be swept up in the excitement. Carol Moseley Braun’s finance director couldn’t stop herself from contributing to Dean herself–and was fired a couple weeks later when the FEC reports came out. (She quickly found a job at Dean.)

Why haven’t any lagging candidates–especially John Edwards or John McCain–dramatically called upon their bases to catapult them forward this quarter? And why have all the candidates so prioritized high dollar fundraising over small dollar fundraising? (For example, the ratio of grassroots fundraising to high-dollar event fundraising totals last quarter was roughly the inverse of Dean’s Q2 2003 ratio.)

Sure, everyone’s sending out urgent fundraising emails asking for support at this “critical deadline.” And there are progress meters. But no one has staked their campaign on this moment–even candidates who could conceivably be knocked almost out of the race by it.

The reason is this: Dean’s June 2003 miracle was not accomplished by an email–or by any clever web strategy. It was accomplished by a special and sincere promise to its supporter base: “We’re going to stand for what’s right–and we’re relying completely on you to give us the strength to succeed.”

It was something similar to John McCain’s 2000 campaign, which was the first big show of grassroots online fundraising power. In both McCain 2000 and Dean 2004, you could see the sincerity and the passion in the candidate himself. In both cases, only half the credit goes to the candidate. The other half goes to campaign managers and media consultants who were not afraid of real passion and real honesty.

In this race, I think we’ve got some candidates who’ve got incredibly exciting stuff going on inside their heads. With the right support, I think they’d be ready to have an amazing relationship with their supporter bases, and would love to be running a Dean 2004 or McCain 2000 style of campaign (at least in terms of passion and sincerity).

So it turns out–at least for now– that Trippi 2003 was a fluke, a lesson that went unlearned. (Sure Trippi’s at Edwards now, but not in charge.) The grassroots will continue to use the Internet and other new technology to assert its influence on the 2008 cycle. The local communities and national networks that were forged in the 2004 cycle have continued to grow and thrive. Now, on both sides, they’re enthusiastically gearing up for this new fight. But so far, all of the major candidates and campaign managers continue to relate to this base only through gimmicks and abstract references to “the grassroots nature of my campaign.”