Fundraising Panic

Jay Inslee, the Climate candidate

June 30: My email inbox is inundated by appeals from candidates.

We need it now!

I got a phone call from Jay Inslee last night. 

There is no mystery here. Candidates want money. The quarter ended Sunday night and it is the fundraising report deadline.

The campaigns need the credibility that comes from getting money. It proves to the media, to supporters, and their own campaign staffs that their candidacy is viable. The 2nd quarter report is a report card. 

I have desperation emails today from Warren, Beto, Harris, Booker, Buttigieg, the Democratic Party, Ted Cruz, and from Don Junior, and Lara Trump, Mike Pence, and two from Donald Trump. Being able to raise money is proof of viability. Not raising money is proof of failure.

Beto email: "Peter, This is it, the final hours before the FEC deadline. . . ."

Warren email: "If we don't hit our fundraising goal by midnight tonight, we'll feel the consequences. . . ."

Emails like these.

Jay Inslee telephoned me at 7:00 p.m., Oregon time. 

I suspect he got my name and phone number from a New Hampshire event I attended. It is too late to call potential donors on the east coast, but his staff would have seen my Oregon area code and zip code and put me on his call list. I attended one event in New Hampshire. I have not contributed, not even one of the many $25 dollar donations I made to most of the presidential campaigns so I could be on their lists. Maybe his staff cross checked my name against names of people who donated to Senators Wyden or Merkley.


In any case, it was a desperation long shot, essentially a cold call, made by the candidate himself. 

"Peter, hello, this is Jay Inslee." 

Inslee website opening page

I recognized his voice and thanked him for the call. 

I said I knew he was busy and on deadline and that, of course he was calling to ask me for money. 

I said my wife and I were undecided about whom to vote for, but that I would immediately send $1,000. I said that by gosh, if the candidate himself calls me, I will send $1,000. I told him that this had to be the worst part of being a candidate.

(I like to handle these calls this way. Get the money talk out of the way immediately and volunteer an amount of money I am willing to give. Then, we can talk about other things for a few moments.)

I said I had seen him up close in New Hampshire and that I had posted a selfie with him on Facebook. I asked if his campaign was viable. 

He said it most certainly was, and the campaign was about more than just him. He said his presence puts climate change into the center of the presidential campaign. I said Oregon was just in the news for the abandoned cap and trade bill that stalled out in the State Senate. He said he followed it and that it was a shame that the bill got shut down, but that he would do what he could as president to make it a national issue, not a state-by-state matter. 

He went on to do what candidates do, look for a point of personal connection. "I went to law school in Oregon, you know."

I said I did know that.  "You went to Willamette." He said he loved Oregon.

In New Hampshire in April

I told him I would go to Act Blue and do the donation right then, so it would count for him for this quarter. He said thanks, and rang off. 

Is his campaign, in fact, viable? 

Possibly. Climate has some potential as a policy--not identity--point of differentiation and motivation for progressive activists. Climate is Inslee's niche. 

Jay Inslee, the climate guy. 

Inslee is largely unknown to a national audience. He does not meet even the "seven things people know" test. Most voters don't know that he is a former Congressman, first from the Yakima area, and then from a Seattle suburb district, that he is now Governor of the State of Washington, that he is an attorney, that he is very tall, that he went to Stanford then University of Washington, that he is 68 years old. 

Maybe they know three things. Jay Inslee is a white male, and his big issue is climate. That's it.

From a branding point of view "Jay Inslee climate" might be enough to get him noticed to emerge from out of group of indistinguishable white, male candidates: Bullock of Montana, Hickenlooper and Bennet of Colorado, Swalwell of California, Ryan of Ohio and Moulton of Massachusetts.

(Beto O'Rourke of Texas has a national identity: the young-acting skateboarder pro-immigration guy from El Paso, who raised a lot of money running against Ted Cruz. Pete Buttigieg isn't part of the anonymous scrum, either. He is the young, gay, Rhodes Scholar small town mayor who seems emotionally mature, a stark contrast to Trump. Each have an identifiable niche.)

Within the Democratic primary electorate, climate is understood as a pro-job issue, with jobs in solar and wind development and in retrofitting buildings for conservation. It's a good brand, for a Democrat. Not every Democrat thinks it is the most important problem facing the nation, but few disagree that it is important. 

To succeed, Inslee needs to raise money while his white male competitors fail to raise money, and leave the race. If the late summer survivors came down to Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren, Harris, and Inslee, then Inslee would have both a brand and a lane to himself.

I don't expect it, but it could happen.

My wife and I have a standing offer. We will give $1,000 to any candidate for president who personally calls us. We did it for Inslee, and fair is fair.