The First Casualty: A Political Campaign Lexicon

Campaign Fundraising: Meet the Candidate
Hold a Raffle to magnify your fundraising

When the Obama campaign held a fundraiser dinner at George Clooney's house in May 2012, it had all the trappings of the traditional political fundraiser.  150 guests paid $40,000.00 each to attend the soiree eating Wolfgang Puck's cooking.  Obama would have raised about five million dollars except his campaign combined this traditional event with an increasingly common form of fundraising - the candidate raffle.  Tens of thousands of others contributed the minimum requested $3.00 to be entered in a raffle to attend the event.  The average donation was $23.00 and the campaign raised ten million dollars more just from the raffle.

It is a method of fundraising that was impossible before the internet.  Now it is a staple of coaxing micro-donations from the public.  According to an article in the Daily Beast, "These raffles are an attempt to pump up the lagging numbers of small donors at low cost. As Democratic consultant Tad Devine points out, “These cost very little money to do…because it’s all online.” They lure in donors who might not ordinarily give money. In fact, the result of one Obama campaign raffle was that former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer donated $5 to Obama in hopes of winning a dinner."

Legally, the campaigns must permit people to enter the raffle without having to donate.   The Democratic National Committee ran afoul of Minnesota Gaming Laws in addition to Colorado law when it did not offer the option to participate in a raffle to meet then-candidate Obama at the Convention without donating.  

The Romney Campaign has aggressively adopted this method of fundraising, holding events to join Romney for lunch at "one of his favorite burger places," and a Baseball Game in Boston, and a chance to meet Romney's choice for Vice President.  The most strange and bizarre campaign offered a dinner with Donald Trump where Mitt Romney's Presence seems almost an afterthought. 

Obama has a current raffle event to join him at his Chicago home for his birthday.  Unlike Romney, the Obama campaign has also leveraged celebrity supporters to lure additional contributors.  Joining George Clooney, Sarah Jessica Parker and Vogue Magazine Fashionista Anna Wintour held a similar $40,000 a plate fundraiser in New York in June 2012.  That event raised $2 million but also raised mocking commentary that the Devil just doesn't love Prada but Barack Obama as well.  As of July 2012 the Obama campaign will no longer raffle off dinners with the President and First Lady and instead give away "Cup of Joe" with Vice-President Joe Biden.