A few quick items:
 
1. Slatecard's record is now 1-1 with regard to supporting candidates in a Special Election. Republican underdog Jon Elrod was defeated on March 11 by a liberal Democrat whose biggest backer was Jack "Porker" Murtha. Sometimes the mountain is just a bit too steep. However, I'm proud of our efforts to raise $1,765 from 38 grassroots activists.
 
2. So far, we've raised a total of $277,536.49 from 4,468 supporters. Progress, slowly.
 
3. If you have a few minutes (and are a political junkie), we could really use your help to update the Slatecard directory. All you have to do is check out the directory, navigate to your state, and cross-reference our directory with a website like Politics1.com to ensure that we have every Republican currently seeking Federal office. Send updates to directory@slatecard.com.
 
Thanks for all you're doing to help us make a difference.

Back to work...

Last night I spoke with a small group of conservative activists at the Leadership Institute about some of the emerging technologies and tips I offer with regard to fundraising online.

Via my SlideShare account, you can see (and download) my presentation:

| View | Upload your own

Of course, a presentation is only as good as its presenter, and since most of the slides in my deck offer little text, I'll elaborate.

I kicked off the discussion by noting that the Internet has done one major thing, "helped us communicate more effectively with real, live people -- 'smarter, better, faster, NOW.'" We no longer have to wait for checks to be written by our supporter and mailed to our campaign -- instead, we're seeing a trend of folks who are giving donations online.

I use the example of Barack Obama as the latest evidence of this shift from offline giving to online giving. I site Barack's online fundraising numbers that have been reported well by Patrick Ruffini.

With regard to how Democrats have been able to amass so much treasure from previously unturned stones, I always use a personal example to help relate what I call the Long Tail of Fundraising.

Now that the stage is set, I talk about the Left's ActBlue and how Slatecard has helped provide a similar utility for the Right. I then talk about some of the tools that I believe will change the online fundraising space forever like Slatecard's proprietary innovation, Donor Analytics, and our deployment of anywhere fundraising widgets and facebook applications (still in private beta) to help drive donations in popular watering holes.

I conclude by offering four quick and easy tips to help better embrace online supporters.

1. Capture Emails at Every Possible Turn. Use a splash page before folks enter your website to make your supporters make a choice -- join your team or don't -- but the choice must be made before entering a website.

2. Ask for Realistic Gifts. Ask your online community for $25, $50 or $100. Your community will give you what they can afford but the folks that will give you low-dollar amounts online will likely give more to you over time. The point is to lower the barrier of entry and build your donor base.

3. DonationTubes. Have your principle/candidate make the final "ask" via video embedded directly to your secure donation page. Read this blog post for a more thorough answer.

4. Thank Your Supporters. It's hard to believe, but some politicians (and I know from personal experience) do not thank their online supporters. As an example of how to properly thank your supporters, I relate the fact that I received a personal note from Senator Tom Coburn when I contributed a mere $20 to his campaign through Slatecard. The benefit of him taking the time to personally recognize my donation is that, well, here I am blogging about it and I told a room of 30 conservative activists about it last night. In other words, treat every donor on an equal playing field and it will likely yield a great ROI.

The bottom-line with regard to online fundraising is that there's no silver bullet. I can't tell you how to mirror what Ron Paul did or what Barack Obama is doing. But we can keep an eye on the space and help relate what works and what doesn't.

Last week at CPAC we asked conservatives walking by our exhibit booth to take the CPAC Slatecard.com Pulse. The Pulse was a quick poll where conservatives selected their choice for the Republican nominee for president and then assign an "Issue Badge" to describe why they were supporting that candidate.

Well the results are in and with 289 votes cast, conservatives at CPAC have spoken.

With 151 votes, John McCain came away the clear winner of our CPAC Pulse, followed by Mike Huckabee with 92 votes and Ron Paul with 46 votes. 

But what's most interesting are the top issues driving support to the candidates.

For those backing John McCain the top issue by far was "Protect & Defend America":

But for Mike Huckabee his supporters top issue was "Faith & Values":

 

And for Ron Paul's backers, it was "Cut the Pork":  

Of course, the cool thing about Slatecard is that when you donate to a candidate, we ask donors to tag your donation with an issue badge that explains why you're supporting them. It works the same way as the poll folks took at CPAC. For more information about issue badges, read this blog post.

Here's a short video explaining how Slatecard works:

This past Saturday, I was on a New Media Panel at CPAC where I discussed what we're doing at Slatecard.

Ethan Demme, who was gracious enough to sit in the back and tick through the slides for my presentation, passed along this video:

Thanks to the generous support of the Slatecard community, we're coming to you live from the Slatecard.com exhibit at CPAC.

Here's a picture of our booth that you helped build:

As you may have read, Mitt Romney announced moments ago that he was dropping out of the race.

We have just launched the Slatecard.com Three-Way Challenge to see which candidate our community supports. Make sure you vote with a generous donation to the candidate you support.

It's hard to admit mistakes. But this time it's easy (because it wasn't my fault). 

You see, if you're a Slatecarder, it's possible you received an email or two from me today entitled, "Thank you."

While we do truly thank you for being a part of the Slatecard community, we didn't actually mean to send that email.

Turns out the email platform we use to manage and send emails, iContact, had a few glitches in their system over the past few days which affected our system and sent you a few unintended emails. You can read more about iContact's problems today at their blog.

No worries.

But hey, from all of us at Slatecard, thank you. (And this time, I mean it.)

Good news. In tonight's Special Elections (OH-5 and VA-1), our Republican candidate's won.

• Bob Latta wins Ohio's Fifth Congressional district by a margin of 56.05% to 43.77% with 79% reporting. (Via Ohio Secretary of State)
  
• Rob Wittman wins Virginia's First Congressional district comfortably, 62% to 36%. (As reported by the Associated Press via Daily Press)

Congratulations to both campaigns for playing hard and fair.

However, I want to focus a bit on the Ohio Special Election where I think there are a few lessons to note as we move forward toward 2008.

With the help and support from Redstate and Blogs for Victory, the Slatecard community raised nearly $2K ($1,908 from 21 supporters) for Ohio candidate Bob Latta. We're not saying that our fundraising was the deciding factor in this race. It wasn't. However, when our teammate needed some help, we showed up on the field and played ball. And we'll do so again next time.

Our record is 1-0 at the Slatecard community. Not a bad way to start.

(Note: Rob Wittman held a 4-1 fundraising advantage over his opponent and was expected to cruise to victory by those with intimate knowledge of the race. Had Wittman needed the support, we would have been there.)

On the Republican side of the race, the NRCC did a great job of flooding the airwaves and keeping conservative bloggers up-to-speed on what was happening on the ground. This is a strong sign of what we can expect in the Fall.

However, I think it is important to note that conservative voices in the blogosphere supporting Latta's candidacy were sparse.

But it wasn't from a lack of effectively trying on Latta's part and his campaign should get credit for their effort. In fact, Latta did reach out to the conservative blogosphere. He not only wrote a guest blog post at Redstate but he also created a special YouTube video to blogs asking for support.

So why the lack of support from the conservative blogosphere? I would argue that it's hard to pinpoint one particular reason but through my discussions among friends and allies, I think several issues contributed to the lack of support.

Those bloggers I have spoken to over the past few days noted the Club for Growth's efforts supporting another candidate in the GOP Primary as a reason to stay out. Others cite a lack of Ohio-based blogs to help feed up information to some of the national blogs (Matt Naugle and others can't do it alone at the Right Angle Blog). And then of course, there's just the general notion of timing -- POTUS '08, Holidays, etc. There's also an interesting comment thread at Redstate worth checking out which credits the fact that both of these seats were strong-conservative seats and few saw a need to jump in for a race we should win anyway.

That being said, a win is a win. And we'll take it. Collectively, we won tonight and we've learned a few lessons along the way which will better help the effort next time around.

And to be sure, the Democrats put a lot in to the race. And by "a lot," I mean the hundreds of thousands of dollars for false, misleading ads and the liberal blogs (using ActBlue) raised about $30K for the liberal opponent, Robin Weirauch. The Dems also sent their best pinch-hitter surrogates in to the race. The liberal blogs and Ohio Democratic politicos used words like "bellwether" to emphasize the importance of the race. (Read Matt Margolis' excellent post on the Democratic attitude toward this race for more.)

Cha-ching. Less money for them to spend elsewhere.

Reps-Elect Latta and Wittman: Congratulations.

In his latest post, "Rightroots, Big Red Tent, and Slatecard: An Assessment," William Beulter of Blog, P.I. and New Media Strategies, has said some really nice things about what we're doing here at Slatecard. As Bill did at his blog post, let me also disclose that Beutler is a friend but I had no knowledge that he was working on this essay.

Here's the comment I left on his blog post:

It started with an email at 4:17 PM EST on Friday. We asked, "Will you help Slatecard break the $75K mark by Sunday at Midnight?"

To be sure, we weren't too far away.

At that point we had already raised $72,672.80 from 356 contributions to Republican candidates and committees.

On Saturday, the ticker had moved up thanks to five contributions bringing our total to $72,815.30.

On Sunday afternoon, we reached out again, pushing the total to $72,976.30 from 370 contributors.

By Sunday at 9:32 PM EST our ticker had jumped almost $1K to $73,909.80 from 393 contributors.

Overnight, our friends from the West Coast and even places like Hawaii joined in, pushing the total to $74,504.55 from 429 contributors.

Which brings us to right now - 8:37 PM EST - nearly 24 hours after our deadline. The tally is short of our goal of $75K, but we're proud of what you've done:

• $74,884.65
  
• 457 contributors
• $163.86 average contribution

Over a weekend, 101 individuals contributed to Republican campaigns and committees. And that's something to be proud of.

In the end, we ended up short of our goal by a mere $115.35.

But through the process, we didn't fudge the numbers. We sought your help, and you stepped up to the challenge. 101 contributors joined the process or contributed more to campaigns and causes that they support.

Thank you.

Last night, five Slatecarders stepped up to the challenge to help nudge us closer to our goal of $75K by Midnight on Sunday. Thank you!

In many ways this Saturday is Game Day. Here's where we stand:
* Total Donations: $72,815.30
* Number of Supporters: 361

Only $2,184.70 to go.

Will you make a contribution to ANY candidate today to help us reach our goal by Midnight on Sunday?

Even $10 or $20 will make a difference.

Two House candidates in particular need your immediate support to win their December 11 Special Elections and hold these Republican seats:

1. Bob Latta, OH-5 (Seat formerly held by the late Paul Gillmor):

From the Rothenberg Political Report:

Ohio's 5th District gave President Bush over 60% in the 2004 election, and, though Democrats Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown carried the district in 2006, Republicans start with a significant advantage.

2. Rob Wittman, VA-1 (Seat formerly held by the late Jo Ann Davis):

From CQ Politics:

On paper, Republicans are favored to retain the 1st, a conservative-leaning area that stretches from southeastern Virginia to the northern suburbs of Washington. Represented exclusively by Republicans in the House since 1977, the 1st in 2004 gave President Bush 60 percent of its votes. In 2006, Republican Sen. George Allen won 54 percent of the district vote even as he was losing statewide to Democratic challenger Jim Webb .

In Wittmann, Republicans are fielding a politically experienced candidate who served as a town councilman, mayor and county supervisor prior to his election to the state House in 2005. But he will face a serious challenger in Forgit, who ran for the state House in 2003 and lost to a Republican incumbent by the respectable margin of 54 percent to 46 percent.

“Virginia’s First Congressional District has performed well for Republicans in the past, but if the Massachusetts special election taught us anything, it is that both Democrats and Republicans should always be prepared to compete in this environment,” said Rep. Tom Cole , R-Okla., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Let's keep these seats Republican.