Campaigns Cost Millions. Can You Spare a Dime?

This has been a busy season for those training the 2008 political cycle's fundraising corps. Last month, Karl Rove, President Bush's political guru, spent hours tutoring future GOP congressional candidates on the tricks of the trade. House Republicans even drafted a 28-page instruction kit -- script very much included -- that lays out precisely what rank-and-file members would need to tell donors to pry loose the $15 million they hoped to capture by selling tickets to the party's recent President's Dinner. (Step 1: Acknowledge the "disappointing loss of our majorities in the House and Senate" and emphasize the "need to restore the faith of the American voters in us.")

Democrats have been busy, too. A few weeks back, two dozen party operatives from various state and federal campaigns joined veterans of Emily's List for several days of seminars. Their lessons offer a window into the part of the political process that the general public probably shouldn't see: the blueprint for members of Congress who devote hours of every week to party-run call centers that look like Wall Street boiler rooms.

On the first morning of the Emily's List classes, longtime Democratic consultants explained that fundraising is not about arm-twisting. It's more about cloaking a cold financial transaction in the idealism and vision of an uplifting cause. Ellen Moran, executive director of Emily's List, describes it as "finding the common mission." But Volk's seminar begins with some more practical advice: If you're calling someone to ask for money, you'd better pronounce their name right.

Volk also warns against common mistakes -- for instance, starting with, "Hi, I'm Shelley Berkely. I'm running for Congress." Not wise. "Then it becomes about you," Volk says. "Remember, this isn't about you the candidate. This is about the donor's needs. How does the donor benefit from this election?" Volk suggests saying: "I'm calling you today about an issue that you care about. I know you are very pro-choice, and you care about that issue. I, too, care about that issue. In the state legislature, I did this, and I did this, and I did this. I'm appalled by this latest Supreme Court ruling. I'm running for Congress, and I think you should send me to Congress to fight for you about that issue."

Volk says the candidate should prove to the prospective donor that he or she can win; after all, everyone wants to back a winner. She tells students to share poll data, recent endorsements and talk up a big bank account (if there's anything worth touting). She also advises telling would-be donors how their money would be spent. A candidate might say, "I'm running this campaign from my dining room table. . . . So this month, I need to raise $15,000 so we can move into headquarters, add computers and get some staff hired. Can you help me with that?"

Then comes the call's key moment: the ask. Name a specific number, she urges. If the call is ending and the potential donor merely says, "I'll send something," the solicitor has failed. "You cannot count 'something' at the end of the day," Volk admonishes. "It equals zero." If that bottom-line obsession feels like a sales seminar for telemarketers, that's because it is. The telemarketers just happen to be working for candidates. They're selling idealism, not a long-distance plan.

Still, the tactics can be cringe-worthy. Emily Elbert, one of the morning's instructors, advised that the best initial source of cash is usually a candidate's own relatives. Sometimes candidates resist, she said. "They may tell you Aunt Millie can't afford to donate. . . . You've got to get them past that."

But the richest vein of campaign money is not Aunt Millie. The people who sustain America's massive political machinery are the die-hard donors -- the folks who have given repeatedly to candidates, campaign after campaign. The experts at Emily's List studied this, Elbert said, and came to a surprising conclusion: Donating to political campaigns can be habit-forming. So Elbert urges professional fundraisers to "re-solicit religiously." Call every six to eight weeks, she said: "Only stop when it stops producing."

All of which underscores the reality that politics in America may feel as though it's driven by emotion, but it rests on a foundation of unsentimental salesmanship. And the pros' advice carries echoes of the sales philosophy pushed by Alec Baldwin's character in the movie version of "Glengarry Glenn Ross." "Only one thing counts in this life," he bellows to a room of rumple-suited salesmen. "Get them to sign on the line which is dotted."

moskm@washpost.com

Matthew Mosk covers campaign finance for The Washington Post.