Evidence of irrelevance

The Hill Times' report on party fund-raising includes a transparent effort on the part of one Con supporter to pretend that the party's anti-coalition message has served to boost its fund-raising:

The constant threat of a snap election in this minority government era is another issue they've consistently brought to their donors over the years to keep the war chest full, said Bob Plamondon, a public policy specialist and the author of two books on conservative politics.

But the most frequent word that has appeared in fundraising letters lately, from what Mr. Plamondon has seen, is "coalition."

"I would say their emphasis has been more on the fear than on hope. I think it's a stronger motivator," said Mr. Plamondon. "They use the fear of a Bloc-NDP-Liberal coalition as the reason to keep the Conservative Party strong and to help them push the Conservatives toward a majority government. It's a message that's resonating with their base. And the evidence is the fundraising dollars are quite substantial."

So let's take a quick test: looking at Alice's handy chart of quarterly fund-raising efforts, spot the point where the Cons are supposed to have radically improved their fund-raising based on anti-coalition fearmongering.
As best I can tell, the only conclusion available is that the Cons' fund-raising is somewhere between exactly on course and slightly down compared to when they didn't use the coalition bogeyman as their chief pitch. And that looks to me more like evidence that it's done nothing much to motivate the base beyond the party's normal fund-raising tactics - not an indication that it somehow reflects any particular motivation on the part of donors.