Direct Mail Fundraising, College Republican Style 19 years, 3 months ago by Martey Dodoo

This WaPo article (which seems to be based on a series of articles from the Seattle Times, starting with this one from late October) talks about the College Republican National Committee's disingenous direct mail fundraising efforts in the months leading up to the election. Since the letters they sent claimed to be from organizations with vacuous names like "Republican Headquarters 2004," many gullible senior citizens of the Republican persuasion donated...a bit too much. From the Seattle Times:

In Van Buren, Ark., Monda Jo Millsap, 68, said she emptied her savings account by writing checks to College Republicans, then got a bank loan of $5,000 and sent that, too, before totaling her donations at more than $59,000.

Apparently, Monda Jo is not alone:

The Times was able to determine the ages of 49 of the top 50 individual donors to the College Republicans. The median age of the donors is 85, and 14 of them are 90 or older.

While the obvious morale of the story is that the College Republicans should have had more transparent fundraising, one cannot help but wonder whether some of these donors should be handling large sums of money, especially if they are wont to give away most of their savings to ill-defined political organizations.

Speaking of which, the Post article contains one of the best quotes that I have read in some time:

The mailings, [the head of the direct mailing firm] said, use "the same lists that every Republican fundraiser basically mails -- gun owners, pro-life activists, businessmen who don't like attorneys. It would be absurd to think we have lists called 'dementia people.' "

But with two years until the next election cycle, you can be certain that they are making them!