Rick's Home Headquarter program...

The Dallas Morning News today ran an "exclusive" article about Rick's grassroots program that has been up and running publicly for several months now (link). Excerpt follows...

Perry's use of volunteers takes a page out of the playbooks of successful grass-roots campaigns before him, including last year's historic presidential run by Barack Obama and the groundbreaking ground game used by George W. Bush in his runs for the White House.

Incentives for those efforts included photos, backstage passes, trips to swanky fundraisers and even commemorative coins. None paid straight cash.

Perry's 2006 campaign had a similar approach, as volunteers competed to accumulate points for recruiting voters.

Jonathan Neerman, now the Dallas County Republican Party chairman, was one of those volunteers. He said no cash was involved then.

"If people were getting paid, I didn't know about it," he said. "I want my check."

I have never understood journalists who cover campaigns but don't go and sign up for the candidate emails and all the various programs the campaigns have to offer... in other words how is this "exclusive" when it has been out there for forever... I even signed in for this just like I signed in for all of Kay's stuff... just to see what it is all about... but I digress...

Kay's peeps are all over this, saying it is sleazy tactics and paying people for votes... which is total spin from Kay's peeps.

I signed up back back in June and have received zero money nor will I... because that is not what it is about...

Basically all I see on my end are occasional emails about events in my vicinity and things of that nature. I think what Kay's peeps are getting very wrong here is that this is just incentive pay for Rick's field staff... basically a way give Rick's hundreds or even thousands of field rep staffer peeps a way to log in and identify supporters they have recruited... this is NOT paying people to vote or attend events for Rick from my experience.

In every campaign I have seen or been involved in field staff must hit vote targets in their regions or districts... if they don't hit the target they often don't find work again in the next cycle. I can't count how many political resumes I have seen over the years that brag about how so and so "exceeded my vote goal by 23%" or those kinds of boasts.

If a field staff can't get paid to go out and recruit supporters, and a campaign can't pay or not pay its staffers based on performance, then what is the point of campaigns? What campaign doesn't hire field staff to recruit? I think Rick's peeps just figured out that you can't simply hire field staff and trust that they will perform... you have to give them tangible goals to reach.