Rocco Rossi Departure: Another Canary In The Coalmine

Rossi was wise to abandon the S.S. Liberal for another gig before the fourth quarter results were made public. The front end was loaded resulting in the fourth quarter with a loss of nearly 700 "Big Fish".in the greater than $ 200 category.

Let's imagine the excuses for failing to catch the CPC juggernaut who raised over $ 17 million from over 40,000 donors.

Liberal excuses:

1. Blame it on the rain.
2. Blame it on Rio.
3. Blame it the Harper recession.
4. Blame it on H1N1- our Katrina.
5. Blame it on a secretative rightwing idelogical  republican agenda.
6. Blame it on global warming.
7. Blame it on the Harper deficit.
8. Blame it on those Just Visiting Ads.
9. Blame it those Bodybags.
10. Blame it on the letter "C" on those Olympic logos.

The Liberals have been down so long that their $3.7-million increase may look like up, but those numbers should be treated with caution -- 2009 donations were flattered by two large fund-raisers and a leadership convention that provided them with a very large (and likely un-repeatable) fund-raising bump in the second quarter. In addition, everything's relative and in 2008 their leader was Stéphane Dion.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/01/john-ivison-add-another-name-to-the-tories-enemies-list.aspx#ixzz0eLWBGuBp

Just another example how Iggymania has failed to materialize.
Pundit's Guide hits nails it in October 1, 2009 noting the Big Fish may be tapped out.

As we've noted here earlier, in an analysis of party contributions by donation size, the Liberals appeared to emphasize large donations in the first half of the year, the result of several fundraising dinners costing the maximum contribution size, and the price of delegate fees to attend their biannual convention in Vancouver (see graph below of Fundraising by Week, which shows peaks for the Toronto fundraising dinner and Vancouver convention). They showed almost 2,000 donors of $1,000 or more (representing about 38% of their funds raised to date), compared with 500 or so in the same category for the Conservatives, representing 6% or so of their fundraising totals.

I have lost count how many emails  I have been sent begging for money from the Liberals.

Show Me The Money: Liberals Big Fish Tapped out?

Where are the Liberals going to find new Big Fish to donate in the 3rd and 4th quarter?




Sept 10, 2009

Where Will Parties Find Their Money In The Second Half of 2009

...So the challenge for the Liberal Party if they want to maintain and augment their increased level of fundraising will be to increase the amount of money contributed by each remaining donor of $200 or less, while the NDP and Conservatives still have roughly 40% of their donor counts from last year they can still approach for a first contribution (and in fact 60% of the number of Bloc and Green contributors from last year have yet to make a contribution this year as well).

But it will be challenging based on historic trends for the Liberals to increase the average donation size of contributors under $200, as their average donation in this category has fallen below that of the Conservatives in most every quarter since 2005 when quarterly returns were first mandated. The alternative for them is to identify large numbers of new donors, in order to try and match the 111,862 donors who gave a contribution to the Conservative party last year.