techPresident - Long Tail - Comments

I would argue that "Long

Will Johnston — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:54:44 -0500

I would argue that "Long Tail" is a term appropriately applied to both the Obama campaign as a whole and the nature of his fundraising.

As to the man himself, no, he does appeal to every person within the Long Tail. However, he does appeal to a percentage of them that is much higher than average. His campaign has convinced a large number of people who have never donated money or time to anything political to support his campaign with one or both. Those are the people in the Long Tail. Netflix and even Amazon only cater to a subset of the Long Tail. Amazon doesn't sell classic cars or antique dressers, but we still say that it derives its business from the long tail. They don't sell absolutely every item that one would want to purchase in the marketplace. Similarly, Barack Obama doesn't appeal to every voter within the Long Tail of politics, but he does derive a great deal of his support from the Long Tail.

If you narrow the categories down into people who are politically active, people who consider themselves left of center, or people who are disgruntled with politics, he captures an even larger percentage of the Long Tail.

As for political fundraising, the targeting of small donors has been going on for a long time, but Obama has done it on a scale never seen before. I would hazard a guess that a he has raised more in small donations than any politician has before (even adjusting for inflation) and that a larger percentage of the total amount of money he has raised has come from small donations than nearly any other Presidential candidate. He is leveraging the Long Tail of donors in a way rarely if ever seen before.

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The term "Long Tail" severely misused

Luigi Montanez — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:46:44 -0500

When will people start referring to small dollar fundraising as "The Long Tail"? Small dollar fundraising has been around for decades since direct mail was pioneered. The idea is nothing new. True, since small dollar online fundraising first succeeded in 2000 with McCain, it certainly has changed how campaigns are run.

But "The Long Tail", as Chris Andersen wrote in his book, can absolutely not be applied to small dollar fundraising. The canonical example of Amazon's success (selling a large variety of books instead of just the bestsellers) simply doesn't translate to the political world. If we were to apply The Long Tail theory as Andersen wrote it, then that would mean that the candidates are the products, and that a Long Tail candidate would appeal to all possible niches just as Amazon can with its selection of books or Netflix can with its selection of DVDs.

But that's simply not happening with Obama (or Paul), and it can never happen with any individual candidate. A single candidate can only have a finite number of positions and strengths. A candidate cannot be pro-life and pro-choice, but Amazon can certainly sell and profit from books about the two positions. A candidate cannot be the Change candidate, and the Liberty candidate, and the Leadership candidate, and the Security candidate, and the Education candidate all at once. A Long Tail candidate, by definition, is impossible.

While Obama certainly appeals to many voters from varying demographics, that just means he's an outstanding candidate who's been able to create a winning (so far) coalition. He's not a candidate of many niches, he's a candidate with a clear identity. The Long Tail of politics, as the Cato fellow defined it, does exist, but a single candidate can never embody it.

Additional thoughts........

Freedomfighter — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:24:37 -0500

I think the analogy of a "tail" has some conflicting ideas. Often, a presidential candidate will be described as having "long coat tails" that is his own election helps get others elected.

I think the analogy here, however, is length in building a sustained momentum. I think the idea works in regard to businesses, which build and grow, but I do not think the same argument can be made with politics. Politics depends on alliances and shared idea which can be fragile because people can change their minds. Politics has so many other dynamics. You can work the same place and drink the same beer over a ten year period but in politics, it just does not work that way.

For example, Moveon started in defense of Bill Clinton, but now it has endorsed Obama over Hillary. Is MoveOn progressive or is it consistently sexist in its attitude toward women? They defended Bill in violating his marriage to Hillary and now they do not think Hillary should be president. Makes you wonder. The long tail here exposes the organization for what it is.

RON PAUL HOUSE PARTY

5oclockshadow — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 08:45:00 -0400

If Ron Paul had a house party it would probably draw 100,000
judging by these numbers.

meetup.com members as of 9/30/2007
updated from 9/23/07

Republicans
........................9/30/07 9/23/07 change
Paul.............. 49231........47,042............+2189
Hunter................260.............239...............+21
Thompson..........207.............180..............+27
McCain..............109.............108..............+1
Giuliani................58..............59...............-1
Huckabee............35..............34...............+1
Romney..............33........... ..37................-4
Tancredo..............39.......... 36................+3
Brownback............0..............0..................+0

Democrats

Obama..............5880.........5900.............-20
Edwards............4169.........4153.............+16
Kucinich............4154.........4096.............+58
Clinton.......... ....2111........2053.............+58
Gravel.................59............56.................+3
Richardson..........23............41...............-18
Biden..................0.............0..................+0
Dodd...................0............0...................+0

Thanks Luigi

David All — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:09:43 -0400

You're right that having a house party is nothing new. I was writing under the assumption that everyone reading this piece knew that.

Regardless, that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to write about what campaigns are doing in the modern space and take note of what appears to be working for them.

Regarding conference calls v. streaming video...beepers are much more reliable than cell phones. What's in your pocket?

________________________________________
David All
http://davidallgroup.com
http://techRepublican.com
http://slatecard.com
________________________________________

House parties are nothing new

Luigi Montanez — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:42:37 -0400

In 2003, the Dean and (Draft) Clark campaigns extensively used online-organized house parties to build their base and raise some cash. In 2004, the Kerry and Bush campaigns held successful national house party nights as well. Colin Delaney even wrote about that fact on this same site a week ago. So the Dean, Clark, Kerry, and Bush campaigns were all utilizing this so-called "Long Tail" before Chris Anderson coined that term to describe the business strategy of selling more of less.

While using webcasts during house parties might be new this cycle, Colin also pointed out that the Obama webcast suffered some technical problems. There's a reason we all use conference calls to do business: they're built on proven technology and you can count on them to work. Unless you have corporation-sized budgets (which is not true of any political campaign), webcasts are just too spotty. Besides, having 20 guests squinting at a tiny, grainy video on a computer screen isn't any better than the "everybody look into space or down to the ground as we awkwardly listen to the speaker phone" routine that usually goes on at house parties.

Nothing Really New

bhschenker — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:53:33 -0400

There's nothing ground breaking in this at all. The only difference between now and the days of calls and direct mail is the barrier to entry is so much less now allowing for more people to participate and most importantly also decreasing the expense to the operation.

I'd like to see a study of dollar spent versus dollar earned over the years. My guess is there may have been the beginning of a dramatic drop in 2000 to operational costs to raise money. Less being spent with more being earned with the increase of online fundraising.

Brett Schenker

5B Consulting
http://www.5bconsulting.com

Nothing New, But New Scale

Alan Rosenblatt — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:26:05 -0400

It is true that small donor serial donors are nothing new, but I am guessing there are a lot more of them now. And many of them are first time donors this cycle.

Alan Rosenblatt
AKA DrDigiPol (drdigipol.com)

Monthly sustainer programs are nothing new

Luigi Montanez — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:44:31 -0400

The idea of raising money via small monthly contributions from a large pool of donors has been around for decades. It started with solicitations via direct mail, then phone solicitations, and this decade has moved to the online sphere. Even if it's not on an automated basis, the Dean and Kerry campaigns learned very quickly that frequently sending mass emails asking for small donations of $25 or $50 was easy money.

Just because Chris Anderson wrote a book called "The Long Tail" doesn't mean that it's this blogworthy new concept...

I went long for Dean

cfinnie — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:39:48 -0400

I sure was part of it last time. Like your friend, I'd never donated to a candidate before. But I was really impressed with the Dean for America website and sent in my first donation ever online in 2003. Eventually I think I gave around $450.00 plus all the time and money I spent on the campaign--for example, paying my own way to Iowa for a week.

As Dean, Obama, and others have shown, this can add up to serious money. I just got back from a fundraiser in San Francisco where we raised over $1 million for the DCCC with a women's luncheon honoring Nancy Pelosi. We had hundreds of women (and a few men) who all gave a fairly small amount as political donations go. Ages ranged from 14 to 90 on our bus. But there were a lot of pretty powerful-feeling women in that room today!

Yes i can be counted

DANIELLECLARKE — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:53:37 -0400

I have a 35.00 monthly donation with the Obama Campaign. When i get extra money by cutting cost i donate more. I also make sure i buy the campaigns logo bumper stickers and buttons and give them out. It has helped to bring other small donors on base. Myself i don't own a car and get free food for house sitting and i do get a small VA pension so my donation fundraiser is almost half of what is allowed for the primary. I have also given some of my sons college money ( I have been saving) in hopes they will have a fairer system when Barack gets elected. I also don't use much energy so the people i help also support Barack with the savings i have saved them. I don't mind eating simple foods as i think about my two kids in africa i also support and it keeps me humble. I haven't bought things i wanted since feb 11th but then again i have been living on as little as 30.00 a month for a few yrs because i know i need to show by example that we americans waste too much as it is. Well i am sure there are many others out there who just haven't seen your blog or can't even afford to get online but they give.