…Who keeps on sending me begging email, even (or especially) five minutes after I’ve dropped a few more bucks.
I care about politics. By all the noodly appendages of the FSM, y’all know that, right?
I genuinely believe this is an existential election, one in which it’s not enough (though vital) to take the presidency. We need the Senate, and we pretty close to need the House, which we are unlikely to get, alas. It takes dollars to do all that, I know. I understand that you don’t get if you don’t ask, which means the campaigns gotta try.
But I hit the breaking point yesterday. My wife and I had decided to drop our last contributions in a flurry of mixed support and magical thinking (this $10 bucks to whoever will propitiate the electoral gods…or this one…or this on…). I allowed all the emails from all the campaigns we’ve given to over the last year, plus all the campaigns and PACs folks who bought my info from someone I actually support, to accumulate over a few hours.
There were more than 200. I ended up sending off a cash to Hillary, the DSCC, the DCCC, and the top Senate races I’ve been following — PA, NC, NH, MO, NV. YMMV, but that’s where I completely unscientifically decided to put what final $s my wife and I figured we could spare. Deleted all the emails. Exhaled.
Within a few minutes — really — more rolled in. No surprise; why should the folks I didn’t give to stop — how could they know I’m tapped out? But still, I was getting tired of the whole thing when I noticed within not that long yet more email from some of the folks I’d just given to. I snapped.
I don’t want much. Maybe a three hour window between last contribution and next ask? (I’d prefer 24 hours, actually, but I’ll take what I can get.) And perhaps a little less agony in the subject lines? Every now and then, maybe a positive note — even something like “let me tell you how we’re going to put each new dollar to use”?
Anyway. Just ranting. Good news out of Nevada, and seemingly so out of Florida, which has me off the ledge. And I’ll further calm myself by getting out and doing something — GOTV tomorrow and Tuesday in New Hamster.*
But sweet Jeebus on a corndog, it’s not just the sheer awfulness of the campaign on the other side, nor the grotesque reality of racism, sexism and misogyny, anti-Semitism, the power of post-truth ideology, the failure of the elite media, and all the rest of the horrors the Trump freak show has dragged up from the shadows. I’m ready for this to be over so that all my first-name email friends quiet down. Just a bit.
Please. I’m begging.
Rant away below; this is an open thread, especially for complaints, dyspepsia, and general fuckwuttery.
*Yeah. I’m a Masshole. I wear it proudly.
Image: Edvard Munch, The Scream, undated drawing.
PS: Ain’t that a grand variation on a truly clichéd piece of art?
Kropadope
Dude, it’s not like there’s someone on the other side going “send, send.” I’d wager anything that shit’s all automated. You don’t hate Democrats, you hate robots.
peej01
I gave money 4 years ago to a congressional race in Iowa (Steve King’s seat)….I’ve been constantly bombarded with pleas for money from whoever is running for that seat ever since. I live in Maryland. I feel your pain.
Tom Levenson
@Kropadope: Somebody wrote the fucking algorithm. Somebody failed to put furlough capacity into it. And I don’t fucking care if it’s a robot. Make it stop.
As the tag goes, I’ve lost the ability to reason about this shit. Feh and feh again.
Paul in KY
Just one of the more infuriating parts of mass Democracy in action! Thank you for being so generous over the months.
RSR
Pretty sure I’ve gotten fundraising emails with that subject line.
dmsilev
I’ve just been deleting them as they come in. Which seems to be every few minutes at this point. We’re almost there, polls close in the Pacific states in approximately 83.5 hours…
debbie
I did too. I’ve just had enough of everything, which is why I’ll be watching the DVD of Season 19 of South Park tonight.
Mnemosyne
Once you calm down, every one of those emails should have an unsubscribe button. Unsubscribe to all of them.
I’m in a cranky mood because, between too much knitting and NaNoWriMo, my hands hurt like a sonovabitch. Fucking carpal tunnels. I’m icing my hand right now.
raven
It’s fucking bullshit and I don’t give a damn about their fucking buttons.
Starfish
@Mnemosyne: Yes, and with GMail, that button is sometimes obscured. It is a little gray link right up next to the name of the sender. Because I volunteered, I kept getting a request for money from Hillary Clinton every few hours.
amk
You are bitching about fucking fund raising e-mails? Really? Jeez.
pamelabrown53
@Tom Levenson: #3
I that is your biggest f*#king problem, your life must be heavenly on steroids. Do what I and so many others do: delete, delete, delete, delete….
P.S. How about another try, another post: something inspirational. Leave the whine for Nov. 9th. FWIW, I always love the paintings you include in your posts.
Baud
I have a dedicated email address for Dem stuff.
brendancalling
I generally just ignore them unless they’re from my state, and then I usually ignore them anyway.
I woke up with a knot in my back. I always get it when I’m stressed out and yesterday was stressful.
Tom
Christ, I hit the breaking point months ago! Don’t you know about filters? Filter your email. That way all the begging goes into a separate folder and you can deal with it easily. And like Kropadope said above; it’s not Democrats, it’s ROBOTS!
Punchy
If you can judge the likelihood of an election based on where real $ is going, then HRC’s odds dramtically improved in just the past few hours. However, odds for a D Senate (at least 50) has significantly decreased. Odds indicate we will have a D Pres and R Senate/House, which means 4 years of absolutely nothing accomplished and 8 SCOTUS judges, unless Thomas kicks it early.
Going to be a LONG 4 years.
raven
@Punchy: The longer the better when you are old!
Mnemosyne
@Starfish:
This is pretty much the definition of a first world problem right here.
AdamK
@Mnemosyne: Exactly. Unsubscribe! It’s in the fine print at the bottom of the email.
WereBear
The perceptive Libby Anne polishes off the evangelical Trump Voter.
Adam L Silverman
@Tom Levenson: You need to preserve all of those emails that mention Secretary Cliinton in case of FOIA or a Federal investigation.//
Betty Cracker
I feel your pain. I signed up for an automatic monthly contribution to HRC’s campaign when I decided to support her during the primary, and it seems like at least a few times a week, the campaign tries to get me to pony up more on top of that. Seems excessive. I’ve spam-filtered the more importunate outfits, including DSCC and DCCC. The other day I got a begging email from the woman who ran (and lost!) against Rick Scott six years ago, trying to shake me down on behalf of other candidates. Basta!
raven
If I donate through Act Blue (never again) then ACT BLUE should have a goddamn opt out.
Baud
Glad to see everyone finally feeling confident about the election.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Punchy: Which odds are you looking for about the Senate? John Ralston, and maybe this is his year to be wrong, was pretty confident this morning about the NV Senate seat– though he did note that NV had an unbelievable split ticket vote in 2012, Obama/R Senator whose name escapes. Duckworth has it in the bag, I have a hard time imagining Feingold’s gonna lose WI in a presidential year, which means NH or PA puts us at 50, plus Kaine. I think Bayh (oy…) is 50/50. I can’t quite make myself optimistic about Missouri, but who knows. If Dems are right to be optimistic about FL Hispanic and AA turnout, we may even see a concession speech from Li’l Marco.
pamelabrown53
@Punchy: #15
Actually, Punchy from all I’ve read, it appears we have a decent chance of hitting 51 in the senate. If we miss it by 1 and it’s 50/50, Tim Kaine is the tie breaker and we get to retire “the Turtle” and the chairs. When I look at the massive and targeted GOTV efforts in FL alone (been housing an organizer since mid-August), I’m feeling rather bullish!
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The FL Hispanic vote may be a mixed bag. Not sure how many are ticket-splitting.
different-church-lady
And this is the remaining thing Yahoo is useful for: throw-away email addresses. Never give ANY business or organization your primary address.
gogol's wife
@Kropadope:
That’s how I look at it. I just delete them, give when I can, and try not to worry about it. This morning was a first — I had 20 messages in my inbox, not one from a person I know.
Evap
I have a separate gmail account just for donations and online shopping. Every few days I go in and do a mass deletion.
WaterGirl
I give to all the campaigns I can and then the first request I get after that – from each one – I unsubscribe and tell them that I gave what I can so please take me off your list. That works for me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, sometimes the people they pick as surrogates make me laugh out loud, but spam spam spam and spam. Do you have any warm and hopeful feelings about the Senate race in your home state
ETA: @Baud: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Good God, I just looked over at my muted TV: “Donna Rice, Trump Supporter” on MSNBC. Curious how many younglings know who that is
Eric U.
someone kept all of their HRC campaign emails and had a funny tweet about deleting 30000 of them. I delete a lot of emails every day, the campaign ones don’t really bother me. The phone calls from people we gave to online drive me up the wall. Obama didn’t do that, Clinton wasted every dime we gave her in the primary calling us asking for more money. Infuriating. Phone calls cost real money, not appropriate. I gave to the DNC back in the Howard Dean days, so we’re on the DSCC and DCCC phone lists. That drives me nuts too.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
Who the hell has 26 hours in a day?
I have had numerous instances where unsubscibe does nothing. And others where the dead subsciption zombifies itself after a few months.
Op-in only ought to be the law of the land.
waysel
@Baud: Yup. Me too. Separate email addy for petition signing and contributing. They can email me there 24/7 and I don’t care.
Bobbo
+1000000
Ann Marie
Tom, I totally agree. On top of the usuals (all the organizations you list), when I donated through this site’s ActBlue link, I was immediately placed on the email lists of all these candidates in other states and had to unsubscribe from all of them. I’m pollwatching for the Clinton campaign in Philadelphia on Tuesday. I don’t drive and they still assigned me to a place in North Philly, about 30 minute drive from where I live. I figure my cabfare/Uberfare will be my last contribution of this campaign.
WereBear
Anything I don’t want to deal with, I slide over to the Promotions folder on Gmail. Then I can delete the whole folder at once as needed.
Love that feature. If I am going to buy something from one of those people who are always sending me offers, I can search for it. The trash empties itself when it is 30 days old.
JordanRules
So many solutions to this problem. Thanks to commenters for pointing some of them out.
SMH
hovercraft
@Tom Levenson:
Perhaps you should step away from the phone/TV/computer, and go spend time with your friends and family and or pets. Go outside, breath, and then when you have calmed down return to us and be the nice man with the interesting pictures in his posts. Turn off the notification on tour e-mail and stay away from it for the next few hours, longer if you can afford to. Then again checking your e-mail is costing you so just stay away.
Punchy
@pamelabrown53: Right now, offshore, for Dems to claim the Senate is -155. So yes, they are still minor favs. But thats down from -210 yesterday. So while they remain slight favs for 50, for whatever reason (and yes, it could be nothing) the odds dropped precipitously. Yeah, it could have been one or 2 punters dropping huge coin on stupidity, but regardless, peeps are voting in the past few hrs heavily for the Rs to keep the Senate.
ETA: aaaaaaaaaaaand sure as shit, back up to -175. And HRC at -400. Things lookin better by these indicators.
waysel
@Tom Levenson: I agree it seems horribly rude, and knowing it would happen actually kept me from donating to the Obama run. I’ve got a separate e-mail now that I do all the political stuff through. Now I send money, sometimes.
WereBear
@different-church-lady: Opt-in IS the law of the land. And you did.
Somewhere, you agreed to it :)
On the other hand, there’s people who think the spam button is the unsubscribe button. Or that it means “I don’t want it,” not realizing they are mucking up attempts at controlling email access with laws.
In the end, the best option is to have a way of diverting unwanted email before it gets to you. Trying to control who has access to your email address is a fool’s game, because the most obnoxious won’t pretend to care.
different-church-lady
We’re offering tech solutions, but missing the point: don’t irritate your own supporters!
Ruckus
@Tom Levenson:
Same here. I hate that my side is using fear and on their supporters. I got a call about donating/voting the other day and I stopped the lady and told her, I’ve worked for Hillary Clinton, I voted for her and only democrats, my name should be on file and I shouldn’t get calls because I’ve worked for her and supported her, both in the primary and in the election and don’t waste your time calling me over and over and emailing me over and over. I get 30-50 emails a day, every one of them trying make me feel guilt for doing the right thing. It didn’t work for mom it isn’t working for Hillary. And it’s beneath her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I realize the reasons for saying this must be approaching six figures by now, but..
…how the fuck is anyone voting for this man?
RaflW
I get waves of emails. I’ll get three in three hours from HRC. And I’ve tried, several times, to click the ‘send fewer emails’ so I can’t even imagine what the people signed up for the full onslaught get (actually I can imagine, because I think the ‘send fewer’ is a placebo).
But I also see emails from different House races in different states that land within minutes of each other that look surprisingly similar.
And all of them are hair-on-fire. I hate that. Maybe the majority of donations are shaken loose by panic, but I’m a donor who responds to confidence and good news. And all this “we’re gonna die!” shit is unceasingly tiresome.
raven
@different-church-lady: No shit, fuck all these dopes.
different-church-lady
@WereBear: SPECIFIC opt-in should be the law of the land, not “you had any form of interaction with us, therefore we send you whatever we want until you find all the right checkboxes buried on three different malfunctioning webpages.”
Bill E Pilgrim
I think some people are not getting the more or less tongue in cheek nature of this post. Otherwise, I mean, it would be kind of amusing to see a man sign up on a lot of mailing lists and then watch him arguing with robotic mailing programs as they inundated him with requests that swarmed around him like so many tiny buzzing drones, like a scene from a science fiction version of The Birds.
In commiseration though despite the fact that I think it’s at least mostly if not all levity, Tom, I feel ya. You wouldn’t be able to spare a few bucks by the way, would you?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Its not just Ralston. Fernand Amandi, who is Cuban American, a professional pollster, and a radio host in Miami has made it clear on several occasions that the polling is severely undercounting Hispanics/Latinos because none of the pollsters either have the money or are willing to spend the money on polling them. If you look at Univision’s polling of states in regard to Hispanic/Latinos the numbers look very, very different.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The polls don’t look good for Murphy, though it’s close. But the electorate has changed quite a bit since the last election, so I still have hope.
JordanRules
The stories from the last day of early voting in NV yesterday had me so excited and energized.
One abuelita took 2 buses to get to the early voting place. She looked super proud and strong. Some folks sent pizza out to all the folks waiting in those crazy lines. And it was affirmed that they would stay open as late as needed so everyone in line could vote.
So cool!
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @pamelabrown53: @Baud: Give this a look:
http://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/poll-hispanics-not-behind-rubio-in-florida-battle-turn-to-murphy
waysel
@raven: This? http://support.actblue.com/faq-donors/#9. Act blue FAQ has a link for opting out. Link
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve unsubscribed. I keep getting more anyway. I gave up unsubscribing, which I think is the point of having emails from every direction.
It’s great in that it works, Clinton has raised a lot of money but I’d bet it could be done better. Lots better. Oh wait, President Obama did do it better and raised about the same amount of money. And I worked for him as well. She learned a lot, maybe she didn’t learn everything.
amk
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This. The big picture, folks.
Anoniminous
Sam Wang has the Senate at 50/50, meaning the polling doesn’t give an edge either way. Every indication is woman are going to turn in record numbers to vote for Clinton that and our GOTV operations should tip the balance. Dems will hold Nevada, take Illinois and have decent shots at NH, Pennsylvania, NC, Indiana (Bayh bleech,) and Wisconsin.
And I wouldn’t discount Missouri swinging blue.
Camner
@raven: Yup…exactly. After contributing to ActBlue within hours I started to get these frantic emails from all the campaigns that got a proportional share of my donation. Yes, one can unsubscribe, and yes, definitely a first world problem, but I think it goes deeper. I obviously don’t know what the percentages are, but I haven’t known anyone who said “I’m really glad to get all of these….I think I’ll donate more.” If I had gotten, say, one a week from each campaign, I wouldn’t have unsubscribe and I might have given more. But having to delete lots of unwanted email every day is a pain and a turn off to generosity.
JordanRules
@raven: Right back atcha asshole. Act like you have some goddamn home training.
Gindy51
One way to stop it is to give with a check via snail mail and do not give them an email. I get nothing from anyone because that is how I do it.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Especially as 1) things are going well in Mosul, 2) none of the major news outlets are actually covering it because its all emails all the time, and 3) if you actually go to open secrets and screen by profession/occupation, the donations to the Clinton campaign by US military personnel is something like 2/3 of the total for military personnel. Only 1/3 that have given have given to Trump.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: I think it was Armandi who said that a lot of newly registered Hispanic voters in FL are listed as No Party Affiliation, which is skewing a lot of analysis by party ID. I may be misremembering that.
Bill E Pilgrim
By the way I couldn’t help automatically finishing the title in my mind with “…I see, from Chimpan A to Chimpan Z”
PaulW
My NaNoWriMo word count is solid for today, so this afternoon I’m helping with local Hillary campaign. Tomorrow I go see Obama FanBoy giggling here…
As for the constant campaign begging. Yeah it’s terrible. There ought to be a break in the damn pushes. But they keep begging even when the elections done. It’s getting to where we need to sue both parties to force a cease and desist order on this crap.
Betty
I agree with Tom that this has become abusive. It’s too bad that you have continued to feel obligated to send more and more. It only feeds the beast. At some point, you just delete before reading and know you’ve done your share. Most of us aren’t millionaires. Let them carry the load. They’ll get the recognition anyway – with ambassadorships, etc.
raven
@waysel: Now see, there is some information that is valuable. Thanks!
Brachiator
I still have a land line and answering machine. It has got filled up with robo-calls. I guess I will delete them sometime after the election.
Also, I didn’t realize that we are coming up on the end of Daylight Savings Time. A few folk might get voting closing times mixed up. More craziness
Baud
Dems should do with a lot of app and website developers do. Offer paid membership in exchange for no ads.
amk
@Anoniminous: 50/50 it may be, but sam gives 78% for senate dems control probability.
Betty Cracker
@JordanRules: I think ordering pizza and drinks for people in long voting lines is a great idea. If Election Day turns into a clusterfuck here in FL, I think I’ll do that. But not in my overwhelmingly GOP little town; I’ll pick a Dem-heavy polling place.
Amaranthine RBG
Give them a fake email address or set up a gmail account that you use exclusively for reservations, donations, receipts, etc.
You never have to look at it unless you want to.
I
Larkspur
I can deal with 50+ emails a day. I mean, I don’t like it, but I can deal with it. It does bug me when so many of them lead with “we’re doomed”, or when Joe Biden tells me “Barack emailed you. Michelle emailed you. Now I’m emailing you….” Oh, Joe. I love them. I love you. Stop with the guilt-tripping.@JordanRules: Yay and thanks for that story!
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Like there would be long lines in GOP precincts.
Anoniminous
@Adam L Silverman:
First off, there are some serious structural issues with polling these days.
Second, pollsters poll their likely voter screens. Once they’ve filled a slot: women, Latinos, etc., they stop counting that demographic. So when the electorate doesn’t match their statistical priors poll results dwindle in predictive power.
WereBear
Mind you, it is annoying to be emailed by an avalanche. But they would only do it if it works, and it probably does.
Gourdly1
Putting all fuckwuttery aside for a minute…I just finished The Hunt for Vulcan which helped me put the fuckwuttery aside for a fair bit longer. Thanks.
Anoniminous
@amk:
Democratic Party control because the VP casts the deciding vote.
PJ
@gogol’s wife: It’s one thing to have 20 emails from people/organizations you don’t know, it’s another to have hundreds every day. It takes a couple of hours to unsubscribe from them all, which is not something you should have to do because you tried to help someone out. And then some of those you unsubscribed from will continue to email you, either the same day or they’ll start up again a few days later.
Applejinx
Well, the thing is, Russell Brand was right: the one that spends the most wins. That is going to be overwhelmingly Hillary, and this is how it’s done. Trump doesn’t have or care about ground game and expects all this stuff to pay HIM and no matter how insane half the country is, that’s not how to win.
I tapped out on Bernie. Swore I’d donate to Hillary if she named Warren VP. She didn’t, but she’s welcome to the money Bernie’s spending on her behalf: usually what I see now from him is lists of specific downticket races I’m to contribute to.
They’re less irritating and doomy than what Tom speaks of: maybe he should’ve been a Berniac :D (also, not nearly so many as Tom cites: some of the Dem coalition is smarter about this)
I also spent a bunch of time and attention I couldn’t afford, and let my software-making business slide while I was working in the primary, and if you could see what’s happened to my livelihood you’d be… well, possibly thrilled ;) however, I’m not sorry, nor am I sorry for being a full-on Hillary vote alongside Bernie, and least sorry of all for personally swinging some BoBuster votes to Clinton with patient, cynical, plausible arguments the people could accept.
Predictably, some of ’em have become frothing Hillary boosters for which she can do no wrong. Feh. Humans ;)
Looking forward to casting my vote. Part of me wants to do it on Tuesday, part of me wonders if it’ll be a clusterfuck. I can afford no pizzas to give line-waiters, and it might be effectively over by Tuesday. I would still vote however long the line, even if it was ‘over’. Just to make the POINT.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It may be.
JPL
@Baud: Good point! When my son and his wife voted early, they didn’t have to wait, and the same with me. Gwinnett county has a large immigrant population, and waits yesterday were still up to two hours long. That’s better than the four and five hour waits from the week before.
Adam L Silverman
@Anoniminous: Yep, I’m aware.
Matt McIrvin
Spam filter gets them all, and I remain serene.
shortribs
Pro tip: If you have a gmail account, you can add a + then some identifier to your current email to help identify and filter your incoming email. If my address were (it’s not) shortribs at gmail dot com, I could use shortribs+actblue at gmail dot com which would ID all email that comes from them and those they shared my address with. You can then optionally add a filter to filter out email coming to that address and auto-delete or deal with accordingly.
Kropadope
@Baud: My town is usually pretty evenly split, either slightly pro-R or goes D in heavy D years. I never had to wait in line before this year, when I had two people in line in front of me for early voting, a mother and daughter.
Ruckus
@shortribs:
Now that’s a first world answer to a first world problem.
amk
@Anoniminous: I doubt that’s what he said. He is talking about elections now, not about some VP vote later.
Xantar
I think I know what the good news out of Nevada is, but what’s the good news out of Florida?
Barbara
When you have hit your limit, you should unsubscribe. That’s what I have been doing, if I know I am not going to send money to a specific candidate anymore.
different-church-lady
@WereBear:
Can we please kill this zombie wisdom once and for all? Companies and individuals do stupid, conterproductive things all the effin time, not so much because the actually know it works, but because it has entered into the zeitgeist that it “works.” It’s like saying booze must be working for an alcoholic, because they wouldn’t do it otherwise.
jacy
@Anoniminous:
Sam Wang indicates that the Senate will be 50/50 — meaning 50 Dems and 50 Republicans. Which means we will technically control the Senate, because Kaine would be tiebreaker. That’s not 50/50 odds on controlling the Senate. He’s giving a 78% chance that we control the Senate. Not a sure thing, but much better than 50/50. Other stats pages that I tend to rely on (Drew Linzer and Larry Sabato) have a similar take.
Barbara
@different-church-lady: Not only that but email must have nearly zero marginal cost associated with one more email. Certainly, cheaper than snail mail or calling people. The “cost” is people like me who hit their saturation point unsubscribing, which I have begun doing.
pamelabrown53
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam, I can’t thank you enough for that link. It provides important data from and about the Latino community that is largely absent in the MSM.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this is kind of interesting
he is a spiteful old fuck
also, too, Dear MSNBC, and probably the rest of the MSM
stop trying to make Melania a thing. Nobody gives a fuck.
Love
Jim
AnotherBruce
Russia is against the Democrats, The Republicans are against the Democrats. The Green Party is against the Democrats. The Libertarian Party is against the Democrats. The Bernie or Busters are against the Democrats. Assange and Wikileaks are against the Democrats. Fuck them all, let’s make them cry.
different-church-lady
@AnotherBruce: You left out the FBI.
WereBear
@different-church-lady: @Barbara: The “cost” is less than direct mail, but in terms of time and effort and bandwidth, more than zero.
There are feedback loops for each type of business and each group of customers. Retail operations, offering discounts and special offers, can get away with mailing every day or even more, while other groups find once a month is a good timing loop.
I suspect the closeness of Election Day has pushed all the buttons into overdrive. It’s probably that this is a calculated risk, but then, the customers will be going away for a couple of years :)
amk
@AnotherBruce: This.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
But it is working. I think other ways might just work a lot better but guilt does work. Now it also might just be because her opponent is a fucking asshole (at the very least) and people are easily overlooking the guilt trip…….
Aleta
Tom, thanks for the invitation to rant! Cause I’m still worked up about a mailer that came two days ago. From something that calls itself a ‘progressive turnout pac’ and claims to be supporting the Democratic vote. Btw, I vote in every election, local state national, and we donate up and down. And had already voted.
The card starts out with my name in large print and then — large caps and highlighted–
“YOU’RE AN INFREQUENT VOTER. … Whether or not you vote is public information. … How would you feel if people who look up to you–children, siblings, friends and neighbors– looked up your voting record and saw that you were an infrequent voter?”
It’s not only the error in their data collection (maybe because of my absentee voting or because of a person with my name who used to live nearby). This strikes me as a creepy and lousy technique by a pac that is advertising its GOTV skills as data-driven and proven behavioral methods.
As far as I can tell their wording/claims are based on a research paper years ago, and were earlier used in mailers for Ted Cruz and other Repubs (who printed out people’s supposed neighbors’ voting records to further shame them).
My neighbor got a card that stated in large print how many years he had not voted — again inaccurately.
I hate that these companies have formed to make bucks off elections by such means, and call it science and data-based.
I want to complain about them to Dem party organizations after the election. — Any ideas about what would be most effective?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: is this gonna be the battle cry of the Trump wing? Maybe I’m underestimating the possibility of a Republican civil war
Buttermilk Sky
Just think of all the trees that won’t die because you aren’t getting six snail-mails a day. I’m old enough to remember what a recycling nightmare it was. I’ll happily delete a dozen demands a day — bring a sandwich and put on some music.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She did mention when asked how as a conservative and a Christian how she could support a man like Trump, that he is surrounded by “good people” like Mike Pence and Kellyanne Conway, who happens to be a personal friend, which I found interesting. As far as who knows who she is, it’s one of those instances where a conservative comes on TV and starts talking about Sidney Blumenthal, and obscure people no outside of their bubble has ever heard of. The media will bring her on because they know her, but to most people of a certain age she’s the answer to a trivia question, to the young uns she’s just another surrogate/supporter.
Another Scott
Tom! Get out of my InBox!!
The same thing happens to me. I give a donation, X hours later I get 5-50 e-mails from “Obama” and “Michelle” and “Nancy” and “Joe” screaming at me that I haven’t given and I need to give NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!11
Maybe 5 days after my donation, I’ll get a generic e-mail thanking me for my donation – even if I didn’t give one to that particular candidate this particular month.
It gets tiring.
I assume that the software that is sending out the Donate NOW NOW NOW e-mails for the DCCC and DSCC and ActBlue and the DNC and the other national groups isn’t using the same database that lists the people who have actually donated. I assume the list of people who have actually donated gets updated every couple of weeks or so and then that gets sent to the campaigns with the cash.
Some of the individual candidates this cycle are even worse than the DCCC and DSCC. I’m looking at you, CCM… :-/
If I were dictator in charge of Democratic fundraising via the Internet, the changes I’d make are:3)
1) Include a 500 character comment field in the donation form and read the comments and take them seriously.
2) Let people opt out of phone calls and respect their wishes.
3) Let people opt out of e-mails and all the rest and respect their wishes. If they don’t opt out, don’t send them an e-mail more than once a week.
4) Stop with the doom-and-gloom. Treat people with respect and stop trying to argue that the fate of the world depends on getting $5 from a particular person. It doesn’t.
5) Stop assuming that everyone who gives to a particular candidate lives in that candidate’s district or state. I’m not traveling 1500 miles on 12 hours notice to attend some fundraiser in someone’s backyard… :-/ You know my address, you know the candidate’s address, use a little intelligence in your e-mail.
There’s probably more, but that’s enough for now.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who probably is going to start Unsubscribing on Wednesday, but may just mark them as Junk because it’s often not worth the trouble…)
jnfr
I immediately unsubscribe to any list that contacts me after I donate. I don’t need reminders to know when I want to give money or volunteer or any other thing.
Most make it pretty easy, but those that don’t have an unsub link go into the spam filter, after I write a complaint.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Gary Hart and “Monkey Business?” That Donna Rice?
Aleta
@Aleta: An open letter in 2015 at Daily Kos to this same “progressive” organization about other unprogressive actions.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus: Imperical data to back up this assertion? And how does on even define “working”?
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Very few people seem to understand that a small group of very intense supporters is not necessarily a representative sample of supporters in general, or of how many supporters there even are. It kind of seems like concluding that Jimmy Buffett is the most popular musical act in America because the people at his shows are very excited to be there.
I really want to see Trump fall short of Romney’s numbers, thereby undermining a year’s worth of TEH NARRATIVE! about this election.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “My silver medal has more silver than every other silver medal!”
We really are dealing with overgrown children here.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Betty Cracker: The vast, overwhelming majority of the non-Cuban hispanics I know in Florida HATE Rubio. He bought a modicum of goodwill with his immigration reform stance but not enough. They’re not going to vote for him just because of the Spanish name. So if we have huge non-Cuban hispanic turnout that isn’t being captured by the polls, we might get lucky with a narrow Murphy win (not to mention, younger Cubans such as myself are less solidly republican). Maybe Franken 08 narrow. Who know.
The thing that a lot of people don’t get (and this isn’t directed at you or anyone here at BJ) is that Hispanics aren’t a monolith. There is a lot of antipathy toward Cubans (a perception that they got special treatment in getting into the US, which is not unfounded, the old guard who came here in the wake of the revolution and are the powerful ones that we refer to as the Cuban lobby are overwhelmingly whiter/of European ancestry).
I guarantee you that no Puerto Ricans are going to give a shit that Rubio is cuban (source: I’m a Miami Cuban married to a Puerto Rican).
dance around in your bones
I’d like to point out that even if you have NOT contributed you can STILL get bombarded with scolding/begging/we’re all gonna DIE! emails. I know this because I have never given $ to any campaign (I’m as poor as a church mouse) and the only reason I can come up with for being in the campaign target site is that I said I’d vote for Hillary, on some nothingburger online mini-poll I took on the way to check if I’d won the sweepstakes that would make me RICH FOR LIFE! (yea, that was my plan at that point – SAD!)
I just got used to deleting the emails on sight, and squashing the vaguely guilty feelings that brought up. Oh, and I did early vote for Hillary in El Paso, where I am currently living. It was at the downtown courthouse, about a dozen voting machines and maybe 3 other people voting at that time. No lines, no fuss – except I was asked for a driver’s license (despite the no i.d. required thing) which I showed – from California – and no sweat.
When I told my sister that I was asked for i.d. she looked puzzled, said she and her husband were not asked..”I guess we look like regular El Paso types” …and I said well, to me it looked like the election ladies were bored with not much to do so one of them asked me for ze papers. Haha! I guess I look like a regular California type – one of the fruits and nuts!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I just got an email from the Ross campaign, and they said it’s the last one. I’ll let you know.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Adam L Silverman: This doesn’t surprise me at all. The Puerto Ricans (I single them out because they’re the Hispanic group in Florida everyone is focusing on) do not give one single solitary fuck that Rubio is Cuban. They will happily vote for the gringo.
Especially the older Puerto Ricans! My Puerto Rican wife’s grandmother hated my ass when we first started dating (I’m Cuban). And not because of my personality, she specifically told my wife “be careful, you can never really trust a Cuban.” She even said I looked shifty-eyed! They ain’t gonna vote for Rubio just because he has a Spanish name and can habla español. Don’t worry about the Puerto Ricans voting Rubio, ain’t gonna happen in any significant number. At least not when my wife’s abuela gives the family in Kissimmee a call and reminds them Rubio is Cuban. lol!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
She’s raised a billion? Isn’t that what Obama did?
Fund raising is about raising funds and she’s done a pretty good job. Granted, in 08 the economy was worse so raising that much was probably harder for him but they both have/had terrible opponents, OK hers is worse on many levels, they both have issues for many voters, she’s a she and has 30 yrs of bullshit to combat, he’s black in a very racist country. As I said I think there are much better ways of fundraising but she has been successful, of that there is no question.
Another Scott
@dance around in your bones: Hey, dance, glad to see you posting again. Don’t be a stranger.
Cheers,
Scott.
Carol
I promised a modest, very modest, monthly sum through October for a House candidate. Never before, and never again. I, too, was bombarded on a daily basis using threats of the koch’s billions for more, please ma’am, more.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus: but is there any evidence that sending 150 messages (to one preson) shakes loose more money than 75 would have?
Betty Cracker
@Full Metal Wingnut: The demographic change I alluded to is the influx of Puerto Ricans, particularly around Orlando. Like you suggested, maybe that’ll swing the election to Murphy — I hope so. Did you hear about Rubio getting booed at the Calle Orange festival in Orlando the other day? Ha!
Full Metal Wingnut
@Betty Cracker: yeah absolutely hilarious! Everyone who’s not a hardcore Miami republican Cuban sees right through his bullshit.
dance around in your bones
@Another Scott: Thanks, Scott! Every now and then I get an urge to comment, and then it’s like opening the floodgates – and I’m never sure just WHAT is going to pour out. But I am always lurking about….:)
NW Phil
@Tom Levenson:
and that someone moved on long ago. Some poor schmuck is stuck with the job of running the system and has no idea how to modify or use it properly.
Welcome to the 21st Century!
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
OK I now see what you are asking.
I was talking about the guilting that they all do as well as the numbers, you are speaking about the numbers. I sort of agree with you on the numbers effectiveness as that just gets old very quickly. I get tired of getting thousands of emails from politicians out of state because they maybe think I’m an easy mark. I actually get the fewest emails directly from Hillary, it’s almost always a surrogate, or the DCCC or the DSC or….. and on and fucking on. For me saturation has a negative effect. When I had a TV, if I saw saturation ads I figured the product must be crap if they have to push it so hard to sell it. But yes it does work, studies have shown this time and time again, lots people are susceptible to saturation advertising. Companies wouldn’t purchase an overabundance of ad time if it never worked. I’ve even had to attend seminars for work about this because I worked at a company that sent out over a million pieces of mail a year asking for more money for almost nothing.
Are there better ways? I believe there are but that may be because I’m a relatively skeptical SOB who hates advertising.
NW Phil
@dance around in your bones:
If you’re a new resident, they are probably required to ask for an ID.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
I actually get the fewest emails directly from Hillary, it’s almost always a surrogate,
And yes I know they are all from the campaign, but I recall that a lot of Obama’s emails involved him asking for money. And I respect that, it takes a lot of money to run for any national office and someone has to ask, I think it should be the candidate. It’s also nice that she has a lot of people who ask for her. It’s the guilt trip and the numbers that bother me.
dance around in your bones
@NW Phil: They had no way of knowing that – all they had was my voter registration card. And I’d been living here for over one year anyway. Really, I think she just had nothing to do! She was quite nice about it.
J R in WV
@dance around in your bones:
We’ve lived on the same property for almost 40 years now, since 1978 or 1979, but our voting precinct moved two of three times, and then more recently was merged with some others to save money.
The only time we were asked for our Voter’s Registration cards was after the merger, when everyone’s precinct number was changed. They needed to make sure we were sent to the correct set of tables in the Middle school’s gym, which hosts multiple precincts. And that wasn’t ID, it was Voter’s Registrationl cards.
All computerized now, with a tiny touchscreen gadget to sign on, a laptop with the voter data on it, even the voting stations. We used to fill in ovals beside candidate’s names, then fold the ballot paper and slide it into the ballot box. Then they were all scanned at the court house. Took until the wee hours.
Now it’s all done within an hour or two after polls close at 7:30. I remember in the 1960s helping the newspaper staff keep running totals all over a 12 county area. We were up all night, using old-fashioned crank handled adding machines, with big chalk boards with county names and precinct numbers – like a spreadsheet on a chalk board. The press deadline was ignored, everything ran late.
Now, no such thing. All done by 10 or 11 election night, around here. I guess if you’re trying to intimidate or hinder voting in certain areas, that would slow things down, like in Ohio, North Carolina. But here we’re all hillbillys. And all the votes count the same.
dance around in your bones
@J R in WV: It literally took me less time to vote than it did for me to hobble into the courthouse and go up to the 3rd floor in the elevator (I am kinda crippled at the moment and using a cane). Totally painless. The being asked for i.d. was not even a bump in the road.
I think everyone had to show their voter reg card so they knew you were registered. Since early voting is not precinct specific, you can early vote anywhere it’s convenient for you. And the card just says “yea, she’s registered”.
Vote on, comrades!
Adam L Silverman
@Full Metal Wingnut: I lived in Miami for two years when I did my masters in religion. I am well aware! And I grew up in Tampa and went to the Jesuit high school there. So I’m really aware! I had a friend in Miami, he was an undergrad when I was doing my MA, who was recruited by the FBI. They said he was a high priority as a native Spanish speaker (grew up in a bilingual household in Hialeah). They told him that as soon as he finished the academy they wanted to post him to Puerto Rico. He then proceeded to explain being Cuban American to them. I would have paid money to have seen that part of the conversation.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Adam L Silverman: oh I wasn’t trying to condescend to you! Just decided to go into story mode.
Gretchen
I’m with you. I reviewed my visa account, and was startled by how much I’ve given. I’ve given to Clinton, the Missouri Senate dem, and my Kansas congressional candidate and statehouse candidates. I’m done, deleting everything else. I’m phone banking tomorrow, and then the election is over for me. I still really hope for Kander for Senate from MIssouri….Maybe just a couple more dollars for him? I’d love to see him defeat Roy Blunt.