Sunday, June 12, 2005

Adopt a Blogging Grad Student

I have to give the Kucinich campaign a lot of credit, and not just because he's my hometown congressman. You hear a lot about John McCain and Howard Dean, but Dennis! (TM) deserves some kudos as well. Even though he never had a shot at actually winning anything, his campaign stayed alive much longer than the other wing-nuts greatly because of his campaign's creativity and straightforward way of asking for money.

His approach was reflected in his appeal for funds nearing the Iowa caucuses, in which he asked for about $100,000 to fund a 30-second ad that would reach the voters of Iowa.

I particuarly liked his "Adopt an Intern" efforts, as described in the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. Perhaps I'm a bit swayed by my experience as an intern, but I find this kind of humanizing tactic very persuasive. Putting a face on your donation has worked for starving children in Africa, so why wouldn't it work for starving (I use this term much more loosely) kids who have dropped everything to help the campaign. I wonder whether any of this money actually was paid out to the interns or whether it was "donated" back to the campaign by the interns in question.

As for this post's title, I'm taking applications...

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