Today's Tom Sawyer ...

Today's Washington Post features an article about current presidential candidates who are wooing Bush donors. While the article is about presidential candidates, every candidate should try to copy their tactics (albeit, on a smaller scale). Here are a few key points made in the article:

... finding a wealthy person and persuading him or her to write a check is not the gold standard. Instead, the goal is to identify individuals who not only can contribute the federal limit of $2,000 but also can persuade 100 or so of their friends and business associates to do the same.

... The genius of the program was twofold: It let the fundraising team showily quantify its efforts, and it got donors involved in the day-to-day operations and planning of the campaign, according to Alex Vogel, a senior adviser to outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

"The relationship did not start or end when they wrote a check," Vogel said. "They were not just donors but part of the organization."

The best fundraising candidates are like Tom Sawyer -- they are able to persuade others to help do their work ...