The Politico's MIKE ALLEN and JIM VANDEHEI piece, "Six ways the GOP can save itself," is an essential read and should serve as a roadmap for pulling the GOP out of this tailspin.

Their third nugget is worth posting in this space:

3. Beg for help: The Republican infrastructure is crumbling. Making matters worse, Democrats are erecting a pretty impressive network of donors, think tanks and activist groups that is exploiting the GOP’s structural weakness. The GOP “needs to realize what the opposition is and how formidable it is,” said former GOP leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). “The Democratic Party is organized chaos, but it is so much better than what we are doing.” It will take no less than three to five years to fix, smart Republicans estimate.

For now, Republicans need their rich backers to crack open their wallets. Democrats such as George Soros are so much more willing than rich Republicans to fund get-out-the-vote operations and clever negative campaigns. The GOP needs to somehow cajole its big donors to fork over millions of dollars to counter Democrats and then achieve a competitive edge.

It needs to be smart while spending it, too. Influential Republicans feel the party must fortify intellectual think tanks, establish new activist groups and get a clue about using the Internet to rally its forces. The GOP also needs to fund programs to train young Republican candidates and activists.

“There is an entire infrastructure that needs to be thought through, and it seems to me no one is interested in building that,” said former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.).

Without a doubt, Slatecard.com is the tool that should be immediately embraced the Republican Party.

The reasons are simple:

• We provide the lowest credit card processing fees available (and we'll likely get them lower in the future). Keeping more money in the pockets of the campaign is commonsense. No set-up fees. No monthly fees. Smarter technology.
• Honesty and Transparency remain essential ingredients to our effort.
• 47 candidates have already embraced Slatecard. Most of these candidates are challengers with a few incumbents. It's a heckuva good start.
  
• After a mere six months, we've earned our spot at the table by producing results for Republicans. Results should be welcomed by the establishment.
• Our Donor Analytics will prove extremely valuable to candidates who care about better targeting a message to their supporters.
• We're backing McCain - with $25 donations at a time - we are helping tap the Long Tail that could help change the fundraising game for our next President.
• Our platform remains insanely reliable and our commitment to customer service is something that we care deeply about and take seriously.
• And we're not resting on our laurels. We're in the process of building the next version of Slatecard which I guarantee will be the most powerful tool ever made available in politics. We could build and deploy faster with more resources.
  

We've built the platform for a community of Republican activists that could easily be embraced by every Republican candidate running for Congress or the Senate. Ditch your costly credit card processing system and engage Slatecard.com. A wider embrace now would add to our growth and the collective success of the Republican Party and help ensure the longevity of the Republican Party.

Sadly, the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" remains relevant.

This past January, we pulled back the curtains on Slatecard's proprietary Donor Analytics utility.

Sendhil and I have dug back in to the data since then and have compiled the information in a Google Doc that you can share, download, and mash-up as you please. If you make any neat charts with this data, please send them to us at Team AT Slatecard.com and we'll include them in this space.

Here's a quick overview of the top FIVE issue badges based on three categories (total $ received by issue, total # badges rec'd, and issue badge value).

Top 5 Issue Badges by Total $ Received

1. Protect & Defend America    $13,216.99
2. Cut the Pork    $10,538.51
3. Jobs & Economy    $7,588.59
4. Defeat Radical Islam    $7,555.76
5. Comprehensive Immigration Reform    $5,953.18

Top 5 Issue Badges by Total # Badges Received

1. Defeat Radical Islam    141
2. Cut the Pork    114
3. Protect & Defend America    113
4. Pro-Life    89
5. Jobs & Economy    71
   

Top 5 Issue Badges by Average Gift (Value)*

1. Available and Affordable Health Care    $355
2. Expose Liberal Media Bias    $340.33
3. Stop Hillary    $181.94
4. Reduce Red Tape    $162.5
5. Free Trade    $158.25
   

Campaign Managers and Candidates:  Imagine logging in to a web-based dashboard every morning to see which issues have been driving donations to your campaigns. You could use that information for smarter, more effective online and offline donor prospecting.
 
Slatecard Community:  Imagine being provided opportunities to support the candidates who best represent the issues that you support -- similar to how Amazon.com is able to recommend books that you might like based on previous history and similar users. Regardless of geography, you would find the candidates that are your kind of candidates who stand up for the issues that matter most to you.
 
These visions are about to become reality through Slatecard's Donor Analytics™

The following is a memorandum previewing the revolutionary innovation and value of Slatecard Donor Analytics^TM. And remember, Slatecard is the most cost-effective solution on the market for Federal candidates, committees and Causes. Republican candidates, committees and conservative Causes interested in getting started with Slatecard.com, the most cost-effective solution for processing online donations, should email Team@Slatecard.com.

Download and Take It With You: SlatecardDOTcom_Memo-DonorAnalyticsReport-01292008.pdf (505.96 kb)

Memorandum
To: Interested Parties
From: David All, Executive Director, Slatecard.com PAC
Date: January 29, 2008
Re: Previewing Donor Analytics™

Since its launch on October 8, 2007, the Slatecard.com community raised $151,318.52 through January 23, 2008 for Republican candidates, committees and conservative Causes from 1,845 grassroots activists throughout the nation. The average donation has been $82.01.

While seemingly similar websites have merely served as an “online shopping cart” for political candidates, Slatecard has always been much more. Slatecard is a utility to support and enhance Republican activism. Upon its launch, Wired.com labeled Slatecard a “Facebook for Republican campaign donors.”

One of the most important innovations leading to Slatecard’s early success has been the deployment of “Issue Badges.”

When someone makes a donation through Slatecard.com, the donor is asked to assign an “Issue Badge” after the donation has been authorized which represents the issue that drove the donation to that candidate. By doing so, the donor is helping qualify candidates based on the issues they represent. The innovation of Issue Badges is an intellectual property asset of Slatecard.

We currently have 30 issue badges loaded in the system:

DISCLAIMER: It is our hope that the following analysis merely provide a glimpse of what the Slatecard.com utility could provide to Republicans and conservative Causes. We recognize that the sample size of which this analysis is based is likely not statistically accurate.

What are Donor Analytics™?
Along with FEC-required contact information, through our Take Control Portal, candidates, committees and Causes can access the issues that are driving donations to them from grassroots activists. Eventually, these reports will be automated through Slatecard Donor Analytics™.

If used effectively, this free tool can help build a smarter, more effective donor prospecting strategy.

By analyzing data collected from the Slatecard.com community, we can identify the issues that are driving donations to Republican candidates, committees, and conservative Causes. It should be noted that not every donor assigns an issue badge to a candidate. The following analysis is based on 477 assigned Issue Badges for a total of $54,187.17 collected from October 8, 2007 – January 23, 2008.

As donor volume increases and donors better embrace the Issue Badges process, we expect the statistical sampling of these reports to improve in quality. Further, some issues, such as immigration in the broad sense, have several issue badges (Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Secure Our Borders, and No Amnesty) which could affect the outcome of this report.

Also, we plan to randomize the placement of issue badges in the very near future so that the default issue badge is not “Conservation of Resources.”

The Issues Driving Donations
One of the more interesting observations is the average donation size for individual issue badges assigned to recipients. One might label this average a “value” for a donation. 

When reviewing the chart below, the methodology should be noted (Issue Badge Total / Frequency = Avg. Donation).

1.    Cut The Pork: 54
2.    Pro-Life: 48
3.    Protect & Defend America: 46
4.    Jobs & Economy: 36
5.    Conservation Of Resources: 33

Top Issue Badges By Total Dollars

1.    Protect & Defend America: $9,435.99
2.    Cut The Pork: $6,593.00
3.    Available and Affordable Health Care: $4,825.00
4.    Jobs & Economy: $4,337.00
5.    Defeat Radical Islam: $3,525.00