President Obama was so certain that he didn’t need to worry about Mitt Romney that he blew off debate prep the day before his first debate.   Here’s the report from the Huffington Post and it looks pretty bad in hindsight:

BOULDER CITY, Nev. — Taking a break from debate prep, President Barack Obama made an unexpected stop Tuesday at the Hoover Dam, his first visit to a tourist spot considered one of the world’s great engineering feats.

Asked why he came, Obama said: “Because it’s spectacular and I’ve never seen it before.”

The president has retreated to a desert resort in Nevada for three days of preparation for his debate Wednesday against Republican rival Mitt Romney.

Obama told reporters that he had not realized his debate camp in Henderson, Nev., was so close to the dam until aides informed him.

So, he said he responded by saying: “Well, we gotta go check it out.”

The Hoover Dam is roughly a 30-minute drive from Henderson.

Obama’s motorcade pulled in after routine travel and the president was soon seen peering out at the dam.

Although we can all understand wanting to visit Hoover Dam instead of doing your homework (except maybe Joe Biden who seems to enjoy everything about the debates).  But we can all see what happens.  So the moral of the story is during every moment of the campaign, ask yourself if you have done everything possible to be sure of winning?  (Including ,of course, calling us for your GOTV emails).

The Enforcement Advisory also reinforces the safe harbor for political and advocacy email.  Email can be a crucial “secret weapon” in your outreach to the voters you need that you haven’t found yet.  It can also be an important tool to have these all of your supporters opt-in to calling and text campaigns that can increase turnout on Election Day.

Get started now!  Our recent updates have given us even more emails to supercharge your outreach.

In their second point, formatting for mobile is emphasized.  In addition to their suggestions, we recommend that messages for mobile are between 500 – 650 pixels wide.  The message will render cleanly on most mobile devices and your layout won’t be subject to some of the unfortunate adjustments some phones make for you.  We also recommend a simplified layout that will render well if read as text only.  Often, mobile devices with strip out headers and pictures if they are too big, so a design that takes that into account upfront will be more effective.

We noticed this shift and upgraded our campaign sending platform to include an option for formatting for mobile devices.  The system will detect the receiving device and deliver the mobile-optimized version of your message, giving you the best of both worlds.  You can have your more robust version to deliver to desktops and a more streamlined version for mobile.  Come check out our new platform and see the difference!

Knowing your supporters and talking with them about their interests is a great way to make sure your message is read and people are energized.  Segmenting your list by issue or interest as well as using your supporter’s name and locale boosts engagement.

What are some ways you boost voter engagement?  Share your stories with us or ask us for ideas.

Building on these points is important.  It reinforced the need to get to know your donors.  As they respond, the organization’s responses should stay in sync.  Continuing the conversation that they want to have increases engagement.  Smart segmentation by demographics and behavior help an organization connect with their supporters.  What have you seen in your donor outreach?  Share your stories with us.

In the Connecticut Democratic Primary for Senate, Susan Bysiewicz ran an ad accusing her opponent, Rep. Chris Murphy of being the largest reciepient of hedge fund donations. Unfortunaterly, that distinction belongs to Scott Murphy of NY. Now before we get to critical, if your last name was Bysiewicz, it might occur to you that two Members of Congress might have the same last name.

And then there is this great example of jumping to conclusions: 
Email from a conservative blogger to Putlizer prize winning journalist Connie Shultz on July 9, 2012,

Dear Ms. Shultz,
We are doing an expose on journalists in the elite media who socialize with elected officials they are assigned to cover. We have found numerous photos of you with Sen. Sherrod Brown. In one of them, you appear to be hugging him.
Care to comment?

Response on July 10, 2012:

Dear Mr. [Name Deleted]:
I am surprised you did not find a photo of me kissing U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown so hard he passes out from lack of oxygen. He’s really cute.
He’s also my husband.
You know that, right?
Connie Schultz.

Since these things always come in threes – there has to be another good one out there. So send it along to me, I love it.

Roger A. Stone
President & CEO of Advocacy Data
Roger@advocacydata.com

Our President & CEO, Roger Stone, spent the 4th enjoying electricity and the AC. After days of being without power cause of last weekends storm we believe that he and his family have a new found respect for electricity. Especially when it’s 100 degrees outside. Roger also made sure that they watched T-2 so his daughter would know about robots.

Melissa Cressey, VP of Customer Service, had a potluck at her friends house eating some of the most amazing pulled pork ever. She got to enjoy watching the fireworks on top of her friends rooftop that has a 360 degree view of the DMV. It’ was pretty spectacular.

Earl Taylor, COO, and his family went to a great BBQ party at his friends house and later they watched the fireworks in Greenbelt.

Please make sure that you’ve liked our Facebook page and that you’re following us on Twitter, we’ll be posting some great data discount deals the next couple of weeks.

– Team Advocacy Data

For us, the Convention serves the same function as every other convention.  It is the same as the Life Underwriters Convention or the National Candy Wholesaler’s Convention (long story, but I used to work those and would go every morning with an empty briefcase that I would fill with the free samples).  Quite simply the Convention is the one time that all of us from around the country can get together and catch up, network and do business.  For me, a Convention isn’t a success unless I have gotten at a couple of hundred business cards and run into a few friends I haven’t seen in decades.

I attended my first Convention by happy accident.  I was living in San Francisco in 1984 and some of my friends were coming into town for the Convention.   The deal was simple – they could stay at my place if they got me into something.  One friend was a page for the Utah delegation.  The great thing about the Utah delegation is that they don’t party like other delegations.  So some of the delegates were willing to loan us their credentials (which were issued every day) to go out one night.  Delegates get into almost everything.  So we ended up representing the Great State of Utah to the Rums of Puerto Rico party.  My one regret about that Convention is that I did not weasel my way into one of the greatest parties of all Convention time.  That was the City of San Francisco party that Willie Brown threw.  He turned a large warehouse into a mini-San Francisco.  There was great Chinese Food in Chinatown and Grace Slick was singing in the Haight.

This year technology will actually help with the age old quest – finding the party.  We are helping with DemList which is actually putting together a cool app with GPS and everything to help you find all the events in Charlotte.

So go to their web site and sign up.  It’s free and you don’t want to miss things! You can Also find them on Facebook and Twitter.

Will I see you there?

– Roger

Roger Stone
President & CEO
Advocacy Data

While these statistics aren’t new news, it’s important to revisit what they mean. Email is a viable and effective method for raising money online. It works best with smaller donations and building affinity with the campaign for repeated donations.

It’s also important to revisit what it doesn’t mean. It isn’t a substitute for building a base of support of volunteers and early funders. It doesn’t mean that an unknown candidate can send one email and “make it rain”. It doesn’t mean that you can get all of your quarter’s targets in one fell swoop.

With a thoughtful program integrated with the other communications and outreach efforts, email can help you build support, engage voters and move them to action. Action can include giving money, volunteering and attending rallies. Email can also be effective in the last days as a GOTV tool, the ultimate in actions in a democracy.

Smart email programs help you target your constituency by their level of engagement and help you build rapport and deeper engagement as the campaign progresses. It also helps you turn your strong supporter into advocates with more information than you can pack into 140 characters! Increasing the base of support and deepening engagement can lead to more effective fundraising campaigns and ultimately, more successful campaigns.

If you’d like to learn more on how to construct a successful email donor program contact us today for a free consultation!