Sheldon Adelson Vows To 'Double' Donations To GOP After Huge 2012 Election Failure

[frazzled]

12. Keep flushing your money down the toilet, Sheldon

Be my guest.

If there's really anything that this last election taught us, it's that a massive donation from a single source is not worth nearly as much as a million small donations from many sources. Why is that? My theory:

(1) Getting people to give even a small amount is worth more than just another advertising dollar: it buys loyalty, enthusiasm, follow-through on voting, and even sometimes footwork. When people put skin in the game, they want to protect their investment. The huge number of foot soldiers the Obama campaign got were largely also small contributors. You had to wait in line in many places just to volunteer!

This strategy worked down the line. For instance, though I don't live in her district, I gave a small donation to Tammy Duckworth's campaign to defeat Joe Walsh in IL-8. A very savvy campaign got right out on asking me (and presumably all the other not-too-distant voters) to volunteer to phone bank and canvass. It works.

(2) Just having the money to buy up big ads is no longer the solution in contemporary electoral politics. Social media and ground work, especially, are equally important. And as I argued in (1), above, the key to a good ground game, for campaigns up and down the ticket, is an active volunteer corps, often brought in by small donors.