Day 214: 12/20/19

As a note, I have family in town for the holidays, and I do prioritize them over campaign emails. I will try my best to get a post out on time every day, but I cannot guarantee they’ll be on time this coming week. Thank you for your patience!

Post-Debate-Day is just as debateful as Debate Day, but Pete Buttigieg was the candidate whose post-debate emails resonated with me the most. I just wish he remembered that less can be more.

	Emails	Campaigns
Total	68	11
Non-Donor	36	11
Donor	32	10

Pete Buttigieg was once again on top of the pack, sending out 5 emails to his non-donors. Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Marianne Williamson restrained themselves to just 4 emails each, while Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang all sent out 3.

After every debate, candidates have a flood of donors and fresh emails for their mailing lists. They have to introduce themselves to their new members and invite them into the flow of their list without turning off the existing members. Pete Buttigieg seems to have decided to dump his new people into the deep end, flooding them with emails so they understand what to expect from his mailing list.

That’s not to say that all of Buttigieg’s emails were spam. Yesterday, I pointed out that several candidates were just boring with their emails. Buttigieg is usually adept at being fresh enough so I read every email, but one of his post-debate emails was actually enough to move me to donate.

Last night, I participated in the final Democratic primary debate of the year. If you watched, you saw the campaign you and I are building come under attack.

We didn’t start with a big email list or a big bank account, but we did have a shared belief that our country needs a different kind of politics if we are going to meet our urgent challenges. And since we got started, over 700,000 people have donated to our campaign because they share that belief.

I hope the way I defended our values and our work made you proud to be associated with Pete for America, and I hope you saw me as a candidate who can beat Donald Trump next November. If so, I’d be grateful if you could stand with me today and chip in to support our campaign.

I wanted to send a note to say thank you. Last night, lots of our competitors attacked the way we’re building this campaign. What they are failing to recognize is that we’re building a formidable organization. One that can take on Donald Trump and his allies — and win.

We’re in the fight of our lives right now. This administration has made it abundantly clear that they will stop at nothing, not even foreign interference, to hold onto power. This year alone, they’ve raised more than $300 million to re-elect this president.

I’m not going to turn away anyone who wants to help us defeat Donald Trump. This is our one chance and we shouldn’t try to do it with one hand tied behind our backs. If you agree, will you please make a contribution this afternoon

The way we’re going to win is by bringing everybody in. If that means that you have to dig deep to chip in $3, or if you can contribute $1,500 right now — we need you. We need everybody’s help in this fight.

We need Democrats who’ve been with us all along. We also need Independents worried about the direction of the country. And we need Republicans who may be disgusted with what’s going on in their own party. We are not going to agree on everything, but we need everyone in this fight — I will welcome anybody who is ready to help.

As always, thanks for your support,

Pete Buttigieg

Regardless of your feelings on Buttigieg, it’s hard to deny he has a skill with words. A good writer (take notes, Marianne Williamson!) is able to convey their message without confusion. If you have to reread a paragraph to understand it, it’s not a good piece of writing.

A great writer can elicit an emotional response with their words. Buttigieg was able to capture all of my frustration with the fundraising purity tests and distill it down to one simple sentence.

“I’m not going to turn away anyone who wants to help us defeat Donald Trump.”

Right now, our house is on fire. Yes, it would be wonderful if the river wasn’t polluted. But we need to put out the fire before we can focus on cleaning the river. We need to elect someone who will work to get the influence of money out of politics, but first, we need to elect someone. All of our hopes and dreams and purity tests go out the window if we bicker Trump into another four years.

For all of the talk of unity and being President of ALL of America, quite a few of our candidates have issues with parts of America. I’m afraid of another “Not hurting the right people” President.

There is never a right person to be hurting. Period.

But back on the topic of emails, another thing I like about Buttigieg is his content team. Thursday night, I commented on how his was the first team to get clips of the debate tweeted out as the debate was ongoing. Today, he sent an email that was basically just one picture and an ask for money.

The thing about a picture like this is that I can share it. I can save this to my phone, tweet it out, put it up on Facebook… I don’t have to search for it. I don’t have to make it. The campaign gave it to me and made it easy to show my support of them.

Other candidates have sent graphics and GIFs in the past, especially with debate quotes, but most of them were just screenshots of the debate with the quote slapped on top of it. This style of graphic, on the other hand, feels deliberate. Between the framing and the color choices, this is a serious statement piece. Hands down, Buttigieg has the best content team in the field.

The winner of the debate, however, was Amy Klobuchar. Or Joe Biden. Or Andrew Yang. All three of them sent me emails saying as much. They quoted various sources to back them up.

Elizabeth Warren did briefly mention that she did well on the debate stage, and Pete Buttigieg claimed what he said was what the American people needed to hear right now. Tom Steyer was perhaps the only one to turn his attention toward the next debate right away, not attempting to claim a victory over the stage on Thursday. It was, in some ways, a refreshing bit of honesty.

Marianne Williamson completed her event with Deepak Chopra. It went so well that she’s doing another one. Not with Chopra, no, but a livestream of an event in a theater. For a small donation of $10, I can get access to watch it. It’s cheaper than the double feature, at least.

Williamson did not talk about the failed bet from debate night.

Meanwhile, Michael Bennet is very excited. He launched a $700,000 push by mid-January so he has the financial resources to carry his campaign through New Hampshire. Already, he is SO CLOSE to hitting his first $100,000 of that goal. Though he occasionally expresses bitterness over being excluded from the debates, Bennet seems to have realized that it’s futile to even try at this point.

Cory Booker and Julian Castro are determined to make it to the January debates, however. So too are Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer. With the new debate thresholds announced for January, only 5 candidates have so far qualified: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. Tom Steyer needs donors again and Andrew Yang needs polls.

Castro and Booker need both. Again.