Vote with your wallet

Those frequent-flier miles are tempting and the fuzzy free teddy bears look cute. But how about this for a new credit card perk: extra cash for Democratic Party coffers.

The Massachusetts Democratic Party, hoping that voters will leap at the opportunity to raise funds, plans to mail 6,500 hard-core Democrats this week an offer to apply for a "Victory Card."

"The sooner you start carrying this card, the faster you support the future of America," the application proclaims, accompanied by a photo of two babies draped in an American flag.

Organizers envision an army of "credit card carrying" Democratic loyalists who pump their gas, buy their milk, and even charge their airplane tickets with the party credit card, bringing a steady stream of cash to fuel the party's efforts to return to the White House.

It's also an easy conversation starter. With the credit card, backers say, Democratic shoppers could preach the evils of President Bush while in line to buy paper towels. Pumping gas? A perfect invitation to talk foreign policy.

"I was just flashing that card in every store I set foot in," said Jane Lane, the party's spokeswoman, who has been using the card since December.

To some, the credit card idea seems a natural fit: "After all, we pretty much take credit for everything, anyway," said City Councilor John M. Tobin Jr., a West Roxbury Democrat. He doesn't own the new card, he said, because he has too many fond memories of the Sears credit card he had in college.

"That was the first credit card I ever had," he said. "I thought I was the big man on campus."

Though the councilor keeps that Sears card prominently displayed next to his sports memorabilia in his basement, he mostly uses his debit card today.

But it will take a lot of gas and groceries for an individual Democratic card user to make a meaningful impact in this fall's presidential race. For every subscriber, the Democratic party gets an initial $40 donation and about 1 cent of every $2 spent. That means if a Democrat charged $5,000, the party would see just $25, plus the $40 starting gift. Still, Democrats are waxing rhapsodic about the cumulative effect of all those purchases.

"If out of this, you can help elect Democrats, you create new jobs. You have a better economy and better schools," said Mark S. DiSalvo, a North Andover Democrat who organized the program in Massachusetts. "That's a better way to put your money than more frequent-flier miles that you're never going to use."

He said Massachusetts is the first state to unveil Democratic credit cards, though Iowa flirted with a brief trial years ago.

But don't look to some of Massachusetts' big politicos to get a Democratic card any time soon. One avid shopper, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, makes of hobby of wandering the aisles of grocery stores in his spare time. But in a tough break for Democrats, he already has five credit cards.

"I don't need any more," he said, thumbing through his wallet.

There's Menino's debit card from Fleet, and two credit cards from American Express -- one gold and one blue. Then there's the card decorated with swans that goes to support Boston neighborhoods. And buried in the folds, there's the city's official credit card, a MasterCard from Citizens Bank, which Menino uses to pay for his business travel. Menino is also quick to say that he pays cash on many of his shopping expeditions in order to avoid debt.

But the state's Republicans do not plan to follow Democrats into the credit card business, said the party's executive director, Dominick Ianno. National Republicans offered a credit card starting about a decade ago, though a spokeswoman said the party has since stopped it because of concerns that it would violate the complicated web of campaign finance laws.

"Credit cards are always a good idea at the beginning, but a lot of people end up having a bad experience with them," Ianno said. "The last thing you want is your party name on those credit cards."

The state Democratic credit card idea has been in the works for years, but organizers had a hard time finding a bank that would help them through the same campaign finance concerns. They finally settled on Juniper Bank, a small but rapidly growing Delaware-based company that specializes in affinity credit cards.

The Democrats rolled out a pilot version of the card in December, and they are now starting a campaign to make it widely carried in the state. Other state Democratic parties are jumping on the credit card bandwagon, too. Michigan's Democrats recently rolled out a similar card, and the national Democratic Party is testing a credit card as well, said DiSalvo, organizer of the credit card program.

DiSalvo said the card has "a few thousand" subscribers, with organizers looking to add more in the coming weeks.

Though the party-sponsored credit cards are new, so-called "affinity" credit cards that benefit universities and nonprofits have been around for years. Tufts University, similar to most other Boston colleges, has put its logo on an affinity credit card for nearly a decade. The Tufts card currently has about 3,000 holders, but the university would not disclose how much money the card has made.

"It has been very lucrative for us," said Tim Brooks, director, alumni relations at Tufts. "We were banking that the alumni would want to show their pride in their school."

Taken together, the 30 million affinity cards funnel about $600 million annually to nonprofit groups, said Bill Weidlein, vice chairman of Trans National Group, which helped pioneer the first affinity cards. The cards generally attract a corps of loyal customers, making them far more profitable than regular credit cards, he said.

"It's a win-win-win kind of an arrangement that's proven to be very powerful," he said.

Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com.