Chapter Twenty Two from my book Funding Liberty
Willis Launches His 2004 Campaign
In January 2001 the Browne campaign began a series of after-action reports, discussing how it had spent its money, and what it felt its strengths and weaknesses were. Perry Willis’s chief report appears as the January 20, 2001 LibertyWire. The Campaign acknowledges raising 2.42 million dollars for its 1997-2000 effort, two-thirds again as much as the 1.45 million dollars that were raised in 1994-1996. Willis did not emphasize that the majority of the million dollar increase referred to his campaign to secure the nomination for Browne, not to his campaign to put Browne in the White House. For July through November 1996, Browne’s 1996 campaign spent $638,000, while in July through November 2000, Browne’s campaign spent a shade over 1 million dollars. A $1 million increase in total campaign budget led to less than $400,000 in additional spending during the General Election campaign.
The 70% increase in campaign budget between 1996 and 2000 should be matched against a 130% increase in party membership, measured January to January of the election year. Campaign fundraising grew only half as fast as party membership. If this ratio of increases is applied to Browne’s original call for 200,000 members by 2000, it becomes apparent that Browne had seriously underestimated how many Party members were needed to put his plan into effect.
Willis claimed that 12% of income went to overhead, 26% went to fundraising, and the remaining 62% went in some sense to outreach activities. In citing these numbers, Willis followed the sound accounting principle of distributing all costs over all projects in a reasonable way, so that there is no spending that is not assigned to any project. As he goes through the historical data, he discusses difficulties with the 1997-1999 approach, the candidate exploratory committee.
Willis’s report demonstrates a strong grasp of the fundamentals of strategic planning. Before proposing what should be done next time, he first examined what was done last time, and which aspects of that effort were least satisfactory. Only after examining the historic record did he turn to proposing a course for the future. Willis’s sound approach should be contrasted with the approach used by the Libertarian National Committee in developing a strategic plan, in which a historical analysis was by deliberate decision not undertaken.
