Raise money, spend none,
get to your goals,
bring in the media guys at the end,
capture the opponent on record
so we can use it against him
when we can,
and husband our money
till the last second
and then spend it all
on trying to get good polling.
And then we figure out,
out of the 100 percent,
who are the 5 percent
we've got to get,
and go get the 5 percent.
It's a strategy I understand,
I just don't know how to do it.
Bring me the checkbook please, sir,
when you get a moment.
One part of my job.
We're 180 days out;
the campaign doesn't engage
until at least 100 days from now.
September 11, August 11... July 1 to August 1,
somewhere in there
is when we begin the campaign season,
and then it'll ramp up quickly from that,
so that by October 1
we've won the primary and
now we're in full-speed campaign time.
But now,
if I have a choice of giving a speech
because I want to make people like me
or go raise money,
I got to raise money.
Because we've got to get to
a million and a half dollars,
or our voice is lost in the wilderness.
What my job is
is to make sure that
Charlie's on the phone with people
who really can give him $500 or more.
And it's not that the people
who can give less
are unimportant,
because they're very important
and we're going to raise a lot of money --
a big chunk of our money --
from several small contributions.
The only thing is,
in terms of how we approach him,
Charlie's a limited resource,
and we need to make sure we have him
on the phone for some of our higher donors,
and making sure that they get the attention
that many of them desire
from the candidate
so that some of the smaller donors will have
a finance committee
and people like that
reaching out to those people
and maybe we'll be sending them a letter,
that kind of thing.
I work with Charlie
to figure out
what kinds of people
are likely to give to him.
The first people we look at
are his personal friends and family,
so we kind of go through
the Charlie Stuart timeline --
every organization, every club,
everything he's ever done in his life,
we pick it apart
and figure out
and we help him remember people
that he doesn't even remember that he knew.
For example, Charlie was on the national board
for the YMCA, I think.
So we're able to look at
some of those other
national board members;
many times they're people that
are financially successful.
And we research their federal giving history
when it comes to politics.
I don't know if I could tell you up front...
Greg, we ever heard of Alan Grayson?
[Off screen] The name sounds familiar.
Now we have a second
Democratic primary candidate opponent,
Alan Grayson.
[Off screen] Is he a real...?
That's the reporter from the Sentinel calling.
Next time the reporter from the Sentinel calls,
I'd like to not say,
I've never heard of the guy
who's now getting ready to run against me.
Alan Grayson is a Democratic lawyer from Florida.
He's filed dozens of cases
alleging fraud by American contractors
during the Iraq War.
[Off screen] Do a rundown on him,
and then do research on him
about what he does for...
You want me to, or just Greg?
[Off screen] One of you guys.
I'll do it.
[unintelligible]
Now you highlighted
the thing about
he said he might get in the campaign.
Where'd that come from?
The Wall Street Journal article.
This guy was talking about it a month ago...
Correct.
OK, would you send me this?
Sure.
I need a document,
so I can send it up to my guys in Washington
to look at it.
Email me that.
I don't know your email address.
This should be helpful.
We have a new guy in the race,
he's a Democrat,
a multimillionaire independently wealthy lawyer,
a guy named Alan Grayson.
He has an ax to grind.
He's making his current millions
suing the government
on contractor fraud
relative to the war.
No, no, it's not --
no, it's not good news.
It's just going to
make the game a lot harder
in the primary world.
And if he doesn't walk away,
then we deal with that.
That's our worst fear.
This guy has a million dollars
and he does what Harry Jacobs
or Gwen Hobey did
in '02 and '04.
Very rich lawyers
who just wrote big checks.
If he does stick around,
it seems like he could only connect
with the anti-war people.
The reality is,
[Off screen] Or lawyers.
my name recognition is low, 20 percent;
his is zero.
But if he has a blank checkbook,
name recognition you buy.
And if I have to out-buy him
with the money I have,
then I'm out of money
when it comes time to the general.
Alan Grayson.
CNN reports that you just won
ten million dollars.
Maria, I won it for the taxpayers.
It was the largest single victory
by a private citizen
against war profiteers.
You're running for Congress to fight...
Lobbyists, tax breaks for big oil, fraud, waste...
So what we need to do
is do speed-dialing contributors.
What does that mean?
That means talk to
at least five or six of them per hour.
If we leave messages, leave quick messages.
"Something has come up, need to talk to you."
We're still using the
"something has come up, please talk to me" message?
Right.
And my fundamental --
what I've been doing is doubling
the amount they've given,
as they ask.
Right.
So $500 would be...
And when you're talking to them,
I wouldn't say, I see you've given $50,
can you give $200 now?
I would just say,
I'm asking or calling to see if you can give $150.
And use a double of that,
or the minimum of $100 --
what's the minimum I should use?
Minimum of $100,
because we're going for an average
of about $150 per.
Wow.
Sure I can do this?
Hello, Janine Walsh please.
Janine, hello, this is Charlie Stuart.
Something's come up in our campaign,
and I need to speak with you about it right away.
So please give me a call back
as soon as you can
at 407-843...
OK, does he have voicemail?
You're a human being, great.
My last name's spelled S-T-U-A-R-T.
And something's come up in our campaign,
so I need to speak with him right away.
Yeah, God would be a pretty effective guy
if he could get you and me out of the way.
Amen, brother.
Jimmy, I called to ask a opinion
and a favor from a friend.
We'd love to have
a list of the members of the church
so I can make sure I haven't missed somebody
in my outreach.
Yucko.
Well, I'm sorry to hear that, that's...
Are you up and around now?
As much as your hip allows you?
Mike, I call with my campaign hat on,
asking you to add to your contribution level.
We have a primary opponent
that you may have seen or heard about
that's spending up to a million dollars
against us,
and we're just not going to let him
take away the chance to buy his way on.
He's not one of us.
So we're needing to write large checks,
and I was calling to see
if I could get you to consider
adding 500 dollars
to what y'all have already given.
You know, those hard prospecting calls,
you got to get that --
got to weed 'em out (laughs).
You laugh like it's funny.
That's not the hard calls;
they're the weeding-out process.
The proper way to do events
that are fundraising events,
especially when the pool of hosts
are familiar with doing these,
the bottom line is that you raise money.
A significant majority of that pot of money
has been arranged or even collected,
or at least solidified,
before the fact.
[Off screen] Once he gets there, what will he be doing?
It's classic work the room, shake hands.
It's going to be an
interesting race in the primary.
Somebody else just jumped in there, right?
A lawyer with money,
who you don't know and I don't know.
O'er the ramparts we watched,
were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets' red glare...
[Audience clapping]
Are you ready to go out and talk to your friends
like Alex said?
Those folks who say, oh, you know,
I'm maybe a Republican,
I'm an independent,
and I vote for the best person.
Are you ready to go out
and tell folks
that we've got the best people?
We have the best people.
They need your time,
they need your talent,
they need your treasure.
[Casual conversations, introductions, and music]
So in my closet
there's this little wall
where my shoe cubicle is...
Yeah.
It's where I put these
when I take them off.
[laughter]
Kind of a record every day of what I'm doing.
Wallpapering?
Yeah.
Our band is
actually playing a show tomorrow night,
and we have to start preparing pretty early.
That's why I couldn't...
Your band -- what band is your band?
Me and my friends --
our name always changes.
[Laughs]
So there you have it.
All right.
I'll figure it out, I hope.
Thank you, thanks for tonight.
Not a problem.
Appreciate it. See you.
None of my other friends called me,
so you're all I have.
[laughter]
That's why we do this.
Kids like that.
[Off screen] How'd it go?
I think it went all right.
I never know what to expect
at these things.
I'm still trying to learn that.