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Fred Thompson Unleashes PAC 2.0 to Send 20K to Tedisco

Submitted by Patrick Ruffini on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 23:33
in

On Friday morning, Fred Thompson sent out an e-mail to his 2008 presidential list through his PAC telling people to go directly to donate to Jim Tedisco.

Our fundraising total for the now 80K for NY-20 campaign stood at around $28,000 when the e-mail went out. Since then, over $23,000 has come in, bringing the public total to over $51,000 at this writing. It's prudent to assume that about $20,000 of this came in through Fred's e-mail list.

This is a very smart use of a PAC's list that too few Republicans leadership PAC take up. Effectively, Thompson has maxed out x4 to Tedisco's campaign, not by circumventing the legal $5,000 limit on PAC contributions, but by directing his donors to give directly to Tedisco.

Every cycle, the Congressional committees lean on their members to write checks to the committees and targeted races. And PACs are pressed to write $5,000 checks. That's the Old Way. The New Way is to aggregate contributions over and above the $5,000 from your supporters, $25 or $50 at a time, thus amplifying your influence. To anyone whose responsible for generating more money from PAC and campaign committees, have you considered allowing these PACs to count indirect contributions from grassroots donors toward their goals -- a far more leveragable source of resources for battleground Republican campaigns?

If you ran in 2008, don't just send Tedisco a $5,000 check. Help him find 500 -- or 5,000 -- new donors from your campaign e-mail list. Fred has shown the way here. Who will follow?

Disclosure: My company designed the Tedisco fundraising widget and is helping the campaign with online fundraising.

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Comments

PAC 2.0

Submitted by tomllewis on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 04:04.

Patrick,

The Tedisco Camapign has raised $1,237,000 in less than 7 weeks. While the bulk of that has been raised the Old Way, it's what you & MIndy have taught us that has sparked the most interest from the people I've spoken with - especially what just happened with Fred Thompson's effort.

Clearly the New Way has much much more potential for expanding our ability to raise more funds, more volunteers and more support for this, or any campaign.

The campaign staff was initially very skeptical that an online effort would yield anything more than a few thousand dollars. Now every day brings more "wow" comments as we close in on $100,000 raised.

Thank you very much for your help and guidance with this effort. It's going to be more fun seeing what the next 10 days brings.

 

Any Indication on Latest Polling?

Submitted by section9 on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 09:55.

Clearly there hasn't been a slowdown in Tedisco's fundraising. Appears to be sprinting to finish. My money is on Tedisco, despite the scare from Murphy. 

Classified operatives

Submitted by lgm on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 15:32.

Disclosure: My company designed the Tedisco fundraising widget and is helping the campaign with online fundraising.

This blog is partly for political discussion (content) and partly for the classified ads for Republican political operatives. Now we understand why there's so little content and so much discussion of technology.

Jimmy Disco...

Submitted by Jim Dandy to th... on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 10:39.

...had better be running scared.

"Rush Limbaugh is meaningless to me," Tedisco told the editorial board of The Daily Star on Thursday. "The only constituency I'm worried about are the residents of the 20th Congressional District."

Uh-oh.  He had to convey abject apologies to Chairman Limbaugh almost within minutes of saying this, and now has egg all over his face for everyone to see

The latest Siena College poll has Murphy and Tedisco tied within the margin of error of the poll.

Looks like Tedisco keeps looking for ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  First, he took a month to get on the record about the bailouts while Murphy ran ads against him, then he picks a needless, stupid fight with Limbaugh, and now he has begun a very negative campaign against Murphy despite lots of currrent research pointing out negative campaigns are just not the way to go right now.  Voters showed last cycle that they lose their patience quickly with negative ads.

It's incredible to me that after the huge advantage in name recognition, the 15-point GOP district advantage, the significant local, regional, and national support, and the unprecedented million dollars spent here already that Tedisco has lost an almost 20-point lead.

Murphy has run an excellent campaign, but still.  All signs are pointing to a devastating loss for the GOP, in a race which they need to, have to win.

did he really apologize to Rush?

Submitted by xc1148 on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 08:41.

or were you joking?

From "The Hill"

Submitted by NextRightNando on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 08:50.

March 20, 2009

Tedisco walks Rush comment back

@ 3:40 pm by Jeremy P. Jacobs

That didn't take long. After saying "Rush Limbaugh is meaningless to me" on Thursday, Republican New York Assemblyman Jim Tedisco's camp walked back the statement on Friday.

Tedisco is facing off against Democrat Scott Murphy in the race for Sen. Kristen Gillibrand's (D-N.Y.) former House seat.

Here is the full statement from Tedisco spokesman Adam Kramer:

Jim's comments were in response to a question about what voters are asking him about on the campaign trail. So far, the concerns he has been hearing from voters on the campaign trail have been local in nature, such as his support for lower property taxes, fiscal responsibility, and his opponents appalling support for the AIG bonus loophole. That was his point and any effort to characterize it otherwise is a distortion of the facts.

 

More evidence of RNC moderatism's electoral reign of terror.

Submitted by Joe C. on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 15:29.

From The Campaign Spot:

"(W)e're seeing extreme Republican self-suppression. By "self-suppression," the source explained that he means the Republican base is not enthused about their candidate..."

"While it’s a challenging environment, this source laments that Tedisco has nullified a major issue by taking a muddied stance on the stimulus, effectively endorsing it."

"To win as a Republican, you need stark differences and Tedisco’s strategy seems to be to argue that there’s no real difference between the Democrat and Republican in this race. His thinking seems to be 'the district is more Republican than Democrat, so I'll win.’ But that is a bone-headed strategy, partially because the district is not as Republican as it used to be, and partially because blurring the differences demotivates the base."

 

That widget is so HOT ♥

Submitted by lagomorph on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 20:15.

I don't have an informed opinion on the candidate or the race, but I do love that friggin' widget.

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He was the Republican nominee

Submitted by Aniya (not verified) on Thu, 07/30/2009 - 15:28.

He was the Republican nominee in a special election for the 20th US Congressional District to fill the seat vacated by Kirsten Gillibrand, following Gillibrand's appointment to the United States Senate; he conceded the race on April 24, 2009.

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