Following up on david’s post on Wednesday, here’s another generic campaign fundraising email that came into my inbox this morning (quoted text all in original email, excepting bracketed):
“Dear Friend,
National [members of opposing political party] are out in force in Massachusetts. They’re spending $400,000 on TV ads. And we’re just 16 days from this election.
This Two Weeks Out deadline is beyond important. Hitting this goal will determine how hard we can fight in the days we have left.
We have to reach our $200,000 goal by midnight on June 11th. Give $5 or more to help get us there.
We’re nearing the end of the road. There’s no turning back. There’s no slowing down. It’s onward to victory.
Help us blast through this $200,000 goal. Give today.
Thank you.
[~Candidate X]”
. . . Two hints about the identity of Candidate X (in case you needed any or otherwise cared): (1) it’s the same candidate in david’s post; (2) I’ll be voting for Candidate X later this month. And like the last email, there are no mentions of anything high-minded like contrasts in policy positions between the candidates or any descriptions about what the candidate plans to do once he takes office. It’s just a bare request for cash.
There’s almost always a phony tone of desperation. There’s almost always some (often vague or arbitrary) deadline on the immediate horizon cited. And it pervades American Politics. (The glut of emails last year from the Obama Campaign–which, I also supported–will haunt me the rest of my days.)
I fully realize that any serious political campaign–or any large organization, for that matter–requires a lot of money to be successful. But it should never be just about the money. But too often it seems like it is. It’s all very dull and uninspiring (and sort of gross).
Another reader of this site asserted that the recipients of campaign emails are largely supporters and don’t need to be “convinc[ed] on the issues.” I understand the point, but I disagree. We should be reminded of what’s at stake. We should feel inspired to get involved in a manner that’s more than signing over a check. And reminding us of why the campaign is so important would have the added benefit of inspiring people to give more.
As an electorate, we should reject these emails and demand that political campaigns be more than cash-grab-athons.
(twitter: @BillTaylor2)
They are very often reporting periods as established by the FEC or state equivalents so not arbitrary. If you are on a lot of these lists you’ll notice that they come with greater frequency toward the end of the month and especially the end of each quarter. I’m not sure, but June 11th being two weeks before the election may be a deadline particular to this race.
But I got one that said last Tuesday was a hugely important major deadline and we could not come up short. Then, three days later, another one saying this Tuesday is a hugely important major deadline and we cannot come up short. Perhaps each Tuesday now is an FEC reporting deadline, but all this seems like the campaign(s) think we can’t remember what we read 72 hours ago.
And, in the course of the phony urgency, they tend to use news that already is stale to political junkies. We also know when our national party’s ad buy is more than twice the size of the scary opposing national party’s ad buy.