The Web Site That May Change History

Unity08—Worth Studying, Regardless of Your Politics

April 2007 By Denny Hatch

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It is high season for politicians scrambling for dollars. The Hillary Clinton juggernaut continues apace with a record $26 million in the till in the first quarter of 2007—over three times what any other candidate has ever raised at this point.

Meanwhile, America is looking at the strangest election in history.

By the end of January 2008, two states will have held their nominating caucuses for president and vice president (Iowa and Nevada) and two more states—New Hampshire and South Carolina—will have held their primaries.

On Feb. 5, 2008, an estimated 21 additional states will hold primary elections including such behemoths as California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Missouri, New Jersey and Florida.

By Feb. 6, half the states will have voted and the nominations for president and vice president may be sewn up nine months before the general election.

The other half of the country—those folks in states with later primaries—will have been shut out of the nominating process.

Or will they?

Dinner With Roger Craver
In 1975, Roger Craver founded the fundraising agency Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co. In over 30 years, it has raised more than $3 billion for a slew of nonprofits including Common Cause, the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, the League of Women Voters, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the ACLU, the Cousteau Society and Habitat for Humanity.

In 1984, when my wife, Peggy, and I first launched WHO’S MAILING WHAT!—the cranky little newsletter based on my archive of direct mail samples—Craver’s client roster included a number of Democratic candidates. In a magnanimous gesture for our fledgling enterprise, he agreed to write a three-part series critiquing political fundraising efforts, but with a twist. The entire series was about Republican direct mail—for Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, the Republican Inner Circle and others. Not only were the critiques highly complimentary, but they were also a fascinating primer on how to make political direct mail work.

For 15 or more years, Craver and I dropped off each other’s radar screens until suddenly last summer I received an e-mail from him asking if we would be in San Francisco for the DMA’s annual conference. It turned out that we were both going to be there and we made a dinner date.

Peggy and I met Roger at Kuleto’s, an old-world Italian eatery off Union Square. Its décor included mirrors, lots of dark wood trim, big comfortable banquettes and it boasted “a 40-foot-long, intricately-carved Brunswick bar made in England, which was brought around Cape Horn aboard a clipper ship and survived the 1906 earthquake while installed at the Palace Hotel.”