Rauner paying canvassers
Monday, Aug 4, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Bruce Rauner’s campaign manager sent out an e-mail to supporters over the weekend…
Well, we’ve tried to keep under wraps the grassroots machine we’ve built as a counterpoint to the insiders’ powerful political machine that’s been around for decades. We’re work horses, not show horses. But what we’re doing is so big and so unprecedented that reporters and the political class have taken notice. Below is an article that highlights our historic grassroots effort.
Thousands of volunteers are walking doors, making calls, and reaching out to their friends and neighbors.
The “ground game,” as campaigns call it, has long been the domain of the insider’s powerful political machine. They’ve invested in people and elbow grease while we’ve too often limited ourselves to the “air war” of ads. They’ve also cleaned our clock.
Not this time. We’re all-in.
Thousands of “volunteers”? Maybe not. Illinois Review…
Perhaps there are thousands of Rauner volunteers elsewhere, but in at least two southwest Cook County townships, Rauner is paying people to walk precincts.
Both Palos Township GOP Chairman Sean Morrison and Worth Township GOP Chairman Shaun Murphy sent out emails this past week, telling their members about opportunities to be paid to walk precincts for Rauner.
The program offers limited opportunities, beginning immediately, Murphy wrote in his email.
“The program will continue for the next several weeks, up to the election,” he said. “The positions will be filled on a first come bases, with productivity the determinate factor for its continuation. The compensation will be $1000 for 100 hours a month or $500 for 60 hours a month.”
Morrison’s email offered a similar opportunity to walk for Rauner in Palos Township.
“Due to available funding, in a joint coordination effort of the Palos Organization and the Rauner for Governor campaign, we are pleased to announce that we are able to offer a paid precinct walker program,” Morrison wrote.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:15 pm:
Thousands? lol…
Look, I get the idea of paying people to canvas, and the idea of paid phone banks are as old as the phone, but to exaggerate your numbers, and label those bring payed as “volunteers” (unless you are talking the ‘paid volunteers’ of the 4 caucuses, but I digress…), that is just a blatant attempt to seem relevant…
… not unlike the millions of phone calls of “Call Me, Maybe?”, with no statewide, coordinated effort to bring the pluses out to vote, as a GOTV, orchestrated by a central ground game, down to the precincts where the voter is taken to vote that plus.
===“The program will continue for the next several weeks, up to the election,” he said. “The positions will be filled on a first come bases, with productivity the determinate factor for its continuation. The compensation will be $1000 for 100 hours a month or $500 for 60 hours a month.”===
This…is not volunteers, “rising up!”, to make the commitment of a statewide apparatus, this is…
“How do I get the most dough?”
Paid mercenaries, like paid phone banks, …can…have the softest pluses, and the most understood undecideds.
Pat Brady and the CYRs must be proud.
“Let’s make phone calls!”
- N'ville - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:15 pm:
Better than minimum wage…
- anon - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:15 pm:
Oh, the same crew who many GOP committeemen openly “accused” of rigging the Cook County endorsement for Rauner.
- the scandal of scandals - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:17 pm:
Oh my, the race is over. Rauner is paying street cash? Never, never has Illinois seen such a sorry display. This race is over and I predict even Frerichs will win by 30 points now. I’d be surprised of a single Republican is left in the General Assembly after the coming wave fueled by these grievous accusations. Whatever Republicans are left will be indicted under RICO, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and for failure to pay their library fines. Capital punishment will be reinstated just to dole out the appropriate punishment.
- A guy... - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:21 pm:
A lot of the folks signing on to do this are many of the same who have been canvassing strictly as volunteers. Once the weather gets a little dicey, you need a younger crew doing the walking. They need a little extra cash if they’re students picking up some work after school or on weekends. I have no idea why this is somehow “news”. They aren’t getting state or city jobs for this work. They’re getting 10 bucks an hour…if they complete 100 hours a month. There are thousands of volunteers out there. Well over a thousand in Dupage alone. I have seen them. I have been them.
- A guy... - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:22 pm:
And before anyone asks, I continue to do so as a volunteer. Unpaid.
- Angry Chicagoan - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:22 pm:
When you have no field operation, and your candidate is super unappealing but has lots of his own money to spend, and no-one likes the incumbent either, it adds up to an easy answer — you hire people, even if they care about nothing more than their paycheck.
The thing I’m waiting for is if either of these two candidates can convince a substantial proportion of Illinois voters that this is a watershed election. If they cannot, it will be a race to the bottom . . . of the state’s voter turnout records.
- Snucka - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:23 pm:
Why would a political campaign try to keep its unprecedented grassroots machine “under wraps”?
- William j Kelly - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:25 pm:
Is offshore rauner paying in US dollars or cayman dollars?
- Grandson of Man - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:28 pm:
“Rauner is paying people to walk precincts.”
Nice astroturf campaign and candidate. First the Carhartt jacket and $18 watch, now paid grassroots volunteers. How fake can a candidate get?
- anonymoose - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:29 pm:
OW…Rauner door knocker left at my door this Sunday. Wow….already. In early August! It may not be thousands….but somebody is sure out there working.
The campaign piece had the hero, Mr. Rauner, on the one side….and the dastardly Mr. Quinn on the other side.
Here is my Christmas-come-early wish. Next campaign visit, by say early October, my hope is the Rauner campaign “accidently” leaves a stack of singles as crisp as the autumn leaves at my front door. No need to knock on the door….just slide ‘em under - I’ll find ‘em.
- Norseman - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:30 pm:
Does it come with a pension?
- Siriusly - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:31 pm:
call it fake, phoney or distorted if you want - but I still think it will be effective - they will get people out to vote
- Anonymoiis - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:32 pm:
You do what you have to Toby God get things done. Depending on the district it may take throwing a few dollars at it to get people out during the day. So be it, and if you win the cost is worth it. One things for certain: they’re doing whatever they feel is necessary.
- West Side the Best Side - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:39 pm:
Who is “Toby God”? And is he a false idol we should be throwing dollars at?
- Paul Lynde for the Block - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:45 pm:
So paying people with cash is somehow worse than the government workers paid by the taxpayers working for for the Madigan machine?
- Anonymoiis - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:46 pm:
==Who is “Toby God”? And is he a false idol we should be throwing dollars at?==
Ha, that should be “do what you have to to by God get things done”
Stupid iPhone.
- Johnnie F. - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:47 pm:
I thought he wants to lower the IL minimum wage to the federal rate…especially for unskilled labor. Surely $8-10/hr for canvassing is probably more per hour than he ever paid a caregiver in one of his nursing homes. It’s about priorities.
- walker - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:51 pm:
Predictable. When you can organize and pay for an effort to get thousands of petition signatures, this is small change.
So much for “no ground game.” We shall see if this works.
Kudos to the campaign manager for telling it like it is. They got their clock cleaned by years of better organization and elbow grease. No longer. We’ll buy heavy into the game if we have to.
- wordslinger - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:51 pm:
–Well, we’ve tried to keep under wraps the grassroots machine we’ve built–
I’m with Snucka, that makes no sense. How do hide that you have thousands of people knocking on doors for you? And why would you want to keep that “under wraps?”
- Anonymoiis - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:58 pm:
==I’m with Snucka, that makes no sense. How do hide that you have thousands of people knocking on doors for you? And why would you want to keep that “under wraps?”==
Only thing I can think of is they perhaps wanted to keep it under wraps while they were building it, wanting to give a false sense of security to the Quinn camp to think they wouldn’t have a ground game?
- DuPage Bard - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:58 pm:
Another 1.5 mill that’ll be 150,000 hours of people at the doors, that’s a lot of doors! Not going to hurt the cause that’s for sure!!
- too obvious - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 1:59 pm:
Rauner doesn’t work for free so why should his canvassers? Definitely don’t be a chump. #wetyourbeak
- Soccermom - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:00 pm:
Johnnie F, you don’t understand the basic rules of supply and demand as they relate to the labor market.
There are more people who would want to do the most menial, back-breaking, heart-saddening work in a nursing home than there are people who want to pass Rauner lit. So you have to pay more.
Duh.
- Precinct Captain - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:10 pm:
They can use that money to pay for drinks at Rauner’s election night party.
- Johnnie F. - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:12 pm:
True canvassing is hard work, and it means actually talking to voters, listening to their concerns, and covincing them your candidate is the best for the job. Canvassing is not just dropping a mini-version of your lawn sign on their door knob in the dark of the night.
In the upcoming months, I wonder how many cartons of undelivered flyers will be found under the porches of all these paid cavassers?
- Archiesmom - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:14 pm:
In my limited experience in Cook County, the pure volunteers bust their butt; paid union people or recruited people who get a modest check and lunch are very good; students are awesome; and the kind of people Rauner is paying are relatively ineffective because they’re in it for the cash and have no understanding of the candidate when questioned. That is, if they even finish the route you give them.
- Archiesmom - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:16 pm:
= In the upcoming months, I wonder how many cartons of undelivered flyers will be found under the porches of all these paid cavassers? =
Amen, Johnnie F!
- Jimmy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:20 pm:
You have to wonder how many “voluteers” will take the cash, dump the lit and make up responses…more money than sense…
- Anon - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:22 pm:
==I’m with Snucka, that makes no sense. How do hide that you have thousands of people knocking on doors for you? And why would you want to keep that “under wraps?”==
To confuse OW haha
But really i think its impossible to start a ground game from scratch (which is essentially what Rauner is having to do in this state because it hasn’t had a republican leader in years) and not have to throw some money at it. Paying a few canvassers just ensures more consistency and more overall hours worked (and help the campaign be able to turn away the crazies who want to volunteer). It’s not like the campaign has more paid walkers than volunteers, even Rauner’s campaign doesn’t have that kind of money.
- Anon - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:29 pm:
One more thing. This post mentions the paid canvassing is in Cook County Townships. It’s a crucial county for Rauner and let’s be honest, it’s gonna be hard to find Republicans in Cook that will bust their butt for no pay there.
- overcooked - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:34 pm:
The Rauner campaign is paying for a targeted literature drop not a canvass. Any effort done now is way beyond what the GOP has done in Cook County in recent years.
- Apocolypse Now - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:51 pm:
Why I am shocked!!! Shock that politicians are paying people to canvass and pass out information. Why someone needs to alert the Democratic machine in Cook County and let them know Republicans are doing this. Shocked!!!
- West Sider - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:52 pm:
$1000 bucks a month! Wow! Thats thats $12000 a year that’s enough money to make me…. go knock more doors for Pat Quinn. Seriously, the least the guy can do is make me a little jealous. Clearly if he’s not even going to pay generously for for his own campaign, you can be sure he’s not going to raise the minimum wage or do anything for the middle class.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:55 pm:
- anonymoose -,
The only “bad” canvassing this early is lazy canvassing this early.
I would bet all those pluses are solid, lol
===. It’s not like the campaign has more paid walkers than volunteers, even Rauner’s campaign doesn’t have that kind of money.===
Wanna bet? lol. All good, love the …
===To confuse OW haha===
If I am in their kitchen, they better come up with better than “under wraps”. Too many others here have taken that Dopiness to task.
- Pete - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 2:58 pm:
After seeing the “paid” help several times out and about for the term limits drive, I imagine the same group hitting the streets to pitch the candidate for the general election.
They don’t tell you they’re paid unless you ask. How many people are going to ask?
- Pete - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 3:00 pm:
On a side note… This is better politics. These people get paid and are looking for the next opportunity.
With the current machine, they get hired and then the tax payers are on the hook from sidewalk to pension.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 3:03 pm:
the only reason most campaigns don’t put money into precinct walking, etc is because they can’t afford to. Rauner can. End of difference.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 3:09 pm:
===the only reason most campaigns don’t put money into precinct walking, etc is because they can’t afford to. Rauner can. End of difference.===
Well put. Sums it up, and puts in clarity what is being done, literally can… be done … because of the “who”.
- DuPage - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 3:13 pm:
With enough money, you can buy a lot of things. With enough (paid) boots on the ground, with lots of air support, (election) battles can be (bought) won.
- K3 - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 3:27 pm:
Lots of folks pay canvassers. This wouldn’t be a big deal if he didn’t try to pass off his astroturf as grassroots
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 3:46 pm:
Agree with Schnorf, Willy, DuPage and K3.
Hiring canvassers is smart. And actually, I would pay for that before just about anything but direct mail.
Recruiting canvassers via blast email from committeemen: not so smart.
Rauner’s got no volunteers I bet because by now they have all been offered a job.
And trying to pass your field staff off as volunteers is even dumber.
- A guy... - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 4:23 pm:
That’s not the real picture, but carry on.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 4:33 pm:
- A Guy … -,
So, what is the real pucture?
“Thousands”?
All those paid canvassers are going going to bring the best pluses?
I am with those who say the boxes of literature will be dumped by some, made up canvassing for the money, and the lack of statewide apparatus is not about mercenaries concerned about hours, not pluses.
I told the story once, about a Crew sending two canvassers to the precinct of the opponent. They came back, a bit early, with loads of pluses, including the opponent and spouse. All parties agreed, no more canvassing for those two.
Canvassing is an art AND a science, and you have to care…
Plus, all these pluses, how ya gonna get them to the polls, with all these mercenaries, statewide, and confirm their status?
It’s a huge endeavor, with paid workers dictating the accuracy. Yikes.
- walker - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 5:03 pm:
Oh Willy!
They got the money for ==”a huge endeavor, with paid workers.”==
What’s the ratio? Five okay paid canvassers equal two really good ones?
Almost anyone they hire can deliver their message of “throw the bums out who are causing all your problems”, and sound like they mean it.
They pull it off, in my book.
- A guy... - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 5:29 pm:
Those field guys are running a pretty tight ship there. They were already on the payroll. It’s not that hard to audit your canvassers. Believe or not Willy, I do know a little bit about the whole canvassing thing. And there’s a lot going on. They’re knocking. The guy 8 inches north on this thread wasn’t home or he would’ve gotten a chat along with the literature. They’ll be back if they didn’t actually make contact. It’s not a rinky dink operation. I’ll let you wait and see.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 5:34 pm:
=== It’s not a rinky dink operation. I’ll let you wait and see.===
Neither was “Call me, Maybe?”
“Millions” of calls…
Just sayin’
- modest proposal - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 5:36 pm:
I’m not sure if this point has been brought up yet, but if I were Rauner I would say, ” We are paying there canvassers legitimately, unlike Pat Quinn who used $64,000,000 of taxpayer money to put boots on the ground for his failed campaign.”
- Anon - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 6:29 pm:
No offense OW but I’m gonna take the word of a guy (hah! his name coincidentally…) who’s actually involved in the operation, and for free no less, rather than the guy who clearly has a hard off for Rauner and almost everything he does.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 6:37 pm:
- Anon -,
Reading your comments, I’m not surprised you are taking.
I guess the “thousands” works for you too?
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 9:23 pm:
Willy:
Bob Creamer’s “campaign school” were essentially paid volunteers. In fact, I am sure they were making less than $10 an hour, because they worked about 100 hours a week.
They were good. Very good. And if you know what you are doing and how to do it right, the paid model works just as paid phone canvassers work.
- DuPage Dave - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 9:33 pm:
I went to high school with Toby God. Nice guy.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 9:35 pm:
he had kind of a messiah complex, though
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 9:37 pm:
- YDD -,
I hear ya.
Here is something to consider;
Look at email sent out. What good campaign touts “thousands” and hard “to keep under wraps” as a tool to get more volunteers, when in the same breath, you are still recruiting from organizations for a field crew, and money seems to be the best incentive to those you are targeting?
You see the false bravado, and monetary recruitment leverage as a good way to fill in a statewide skeletal apparatus?
You can’t tell me “thousands”, not “A” thousand, “thousands”…and follow up that with the second plea as a “the grassroots machine” it tries to be seen?
You may be right…I’m not swayed as of yet.
- DuPage Bard - Monday, Aug 4, 14 @ 9:43 pm:
Big question, with all the races that are going and tight are any of the “good” people left? I have to imagine, this close to election day, anyone with any chops is already working. Or is he going to utilize the non licensed Uber drivers?
- Not it - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 8:38 am:
So Rauner is paying people to walk the streets? So, how is that different from what Quinn did, except Rauner is using campaign funds and Quinn did not?
Heh.
- Tax Free in the Caymans - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 8:46 am:
Rumor has it that the office in New Lenox or Frankfort is paying cash….and not paying any payroll taxes on this money.
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 8:51 am:
–So, how is that different from what Quinn did, except Rauner is using campaign funds and Quinn did not?–
Thanks for restating the same talking point that’s been made about 20 times here over the last 24 hours. Adds a lot.
Let me restate a point that has been made many times: The problem of NRI as a slush fund for GOTV is that no money went out until more than two months after the election.
Do you think that’s how street money works? Help me know, and I’ll pay you in a couple of months IF I get elected?
Before the election, Quinn looked like a slam-dunk loser. The idea that these ward barons would make a GOTV effort on spec is questionable at best. History has shown that they like upfront money, cash on the barrelhead.
- Jimbo - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 9:00 am:
Paid volunteers aren’t true believers. They don’t have any information other than their talking points. Want to guess how often someone asks a question that your campaign lit doesn’t address? This will help Rauner a bit, but you can’t pretend it is a volunteer army of canvassers or a grass root campaign, no matter how cheap Rauner’s watch is.
- Jimbo - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 9:05 am:
Well tax free, I’m sure they’re 1099 independent contractors lol. They’re supposed to pay their FICA themselves plus the employer portion. Swell guy that Rauner. This could actually sting pretty good if the dems run with “First Rauner didn’t pay Social Security taxes, and now he used a loophole to avoid paying it for his campaign workers”
It isn’t a loophole and everyone does it, but it is kind of Shady to pay someone that way. They don’t realize they’re on the hook for 15% off the top before fed and state taxes.
- Jimbo - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 9:08 am:
How much does Rauner pay for 100 posts on CapFax?
- wordslinger - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 9:09 am:
–Rumor has it that the office in New Lenox or Frankfort is paying cash….and not paying any payroll taxes on this money. –
See? That’s how street money works. Not vague talk about possible state grants a couple of months after an election.
- Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 9:15 am:
Walkin’ around money, is for “walkin’ around”, not a promissory note you flash to seem “kool”
This part of a Ground Game is not rocket science…
- Tax Free in the Caymans - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 10:04 am:
From what I understand, and again, this is secondhand….they are getting straight cash and are not 1099′d…or at least they weren’t told they would be 1099′d…so there might be some surprised people come January.
- James Knell - Tuesday, Aug 5, 14 @ 2:13 pm:
Rauner is as obviously fake as Mitt was in 2008. The watch, the jacket, the mansions, the Richistan passport is fitting the Mr. Burns image to a T. If your sick, old, a student, a public employee of any kind, or just care about your state government, Bruce Rauner is a very scary, very rich guy. Pat Quinn on the other hand tries his best. He works with a consera-Dem (Madigan) and whatever you want to call Cullerton like a Governor should. Sometimes he even gets his stuff passed. He tells you what you don’t want to hear about the state budget, but when you look at the Pew Center for the States website, you see IL having a big deficit, lower taxes, and a relatively lean operation. There is no magic fairy dust that can find huge cuts without getting rid of your state government. Like it or not… every state needs one.