I Humbly Ask, PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE!
One of the great boons to politicians in recent years has been email. Conversely, it’s been one of the most gallingly-egregious plagues to the voting public.
Once upon a time, if a politician wanted to raise money in bulk, they had to do so by mail – which cost money, often a lot of money. So, politicians had to pick-and-choose carefully how often they’d make fundraising appeals, and also to who. But today, email is free. You can pay for a mailing list, and that’s the last nickel you may have to spend. You just hire an unpaid intern to send out a woeful plea for cash – and you can send it all over the country, even if you’re just just running in a local district race. And send a new plea every day. Sometimes several times a day. Donating to a candidate doesn’t grant you a reprieve from being relentlessly asked– either they now see you as someone who will donate “and can you please give some more?” or they have no idea that you donated, so it doesn’t matter. After all, you’re On The List. And you keep getting asked and asked, even if you give and give. And if you gave to someone else, you’re still On The List.
(Excuse the interruption a moment, but as as you read this, if at any time you realize you're late for an appointment or decide you have better things to do at that moment, and so choose to stop -- please first jump to the very end. It will be worth it. Really. Though it will be even better if you get to it at the end having read to get the full perspective. Though admittedly I'm biased.)
To be clear, I know that candidates hate fundraising. I also know, however, that this isn’t traditional fundraising, where a candidate makes hours of personal calls or goes to coffee klatches to gladhand the room and promise commitments in return, but rather is something a candidate may actually have no involvement with. That’s the joy to politicians and curse to voters of emails.
I’ve written about email fundraising in the past, about how annoying it is, and thoughtless. I can’t say it’s counter-productive since almost everything raised is profit. But it certainly spits in the face of people who are likely their supporters, or at least supporters of their party. And even being endlessly rude won't likely lose a politician voters, most especially since the majority of recipients are probably out-of-state and can't vote for them anyway. So, I can’t precisely fault them – even as they clog up the country's email Inboxes – but I can certainly wish they’d do a better job.
That’s because, while when I wrote about this earlier I felt it was just an annoying email issue, today I’m coming to the point where I think it’s actually a depressive that causes national angst. I’m only barely being facetious -- and not really at that.
Consider: when was the last time you got a candidate email plea saying, “Great news!! We are so far ahead in the polls! Now is the time to pour it on and bury our opponent so there is no way he can come back!!”?? I can count on both hands (maybe even just one) out of the thousands that have come in this election cycle any just basic positive emails I’ve received. By contrast, pretty much all the emails we get have a Subject line like – “Terrible news.” Or “I hate to write this.” Or “Disastrous poll numbers.” Or “I’m humbly begging.” Or “We are being outspent by our opponents major money.” Or “Is there anything I can say that will get you to donate?” Or, “Just $5, that’s all I’m asking.” I swear that only last week, I got an email whose Subject line began, “I am crying, Robert…” (I don’t know who it was from, since I didn’t open it, concerned that his tears would leak out over my keyboard and short it out.) I still even get fundraising emails here in California from Adam Schiff – who is leading in polls by around 25 points!
(Colin Allread in Texas is one of the very few who sent along a “Good news!” email, passing along that a poll shows them up by one point over Ted Cruz, so now is the time they need money – a totally justifiable request. And an utter rarity.)
The depressing pleas come in all sizes, but most of them tend to fall into three mournful categories:
The first is, “Awful news!!” Which you open up with growing angst to read that they just haven’t reach their fundraising goal for the reporting period. My reaction to such emails is , hey, it isn’t my fault that you didn’t reach your goal. Maybe the problem is that you set your goal too high! (Imagine instead lowering the goal and being able to write: "Great news, we reached our goal! Our support is growing. What we now we have to do is match this quarters goal again to keep going."
The second type of anxiety appeal is that they’re losing in some (always unnamed) poll, or the gap has shrunk to almost tied. Such a poll might certainly be meaningful, but it might also be the one outlier done by an outfit even the campaign had never heard of before. (I once got so annoyed enough be one such “terrible poll result” plea that seemed off that I actually checked it out. The candidate did have an uphill race, but what they wrote turned out to be so manipulated that I wrote back to the campaign how irresponsible they were.)
My least favorite type, though, are the ones that chastise. Taking the recipient to task for not doing his or her part. The Subject lines read, “We see you haven’t donated in a month, Robert!” I sometimes think of writing back, “That’s right, because you annoyed me so much by asking for more money three days after I last gave to you.” Or writing, "What, are you going to tell my parents on me?" Or “And are you also aware how much TV I watched and that I didn't eat eat vegetables all last week?”
(As an honorable mention, I also like when an email comes in that says it’s a “Personal note from…” the candidate. No, sorry, a bulk generic email is not personal.)
The point here of all this is that because candidate emails are totally gloomy and dispiriting, and come pouring into our Inboxes every day -- after-day-after-day – for eight months, if not longer – telling us terrible, desperate, disastrous news from pretty much everyone running, that the end result is it almost makes the whole political process too demoralizing because it feels like All is Lost.
Even when that might not be the case at all. Especially when your candidate might actually be up. Clearly, most races are close, and most candidates do need money. But there has to be a better way of reaching out than by inundating your supporters with doom and gloom and making them feeling like curling up in a ball and hibernating until it's all over.
I’m sure candidates have enough success with this way of operating that they find it worthwhile. I also suspect most operate this way because it’s easier to cry out that they’re in dire shape and need your money. But I know, too, that if someone is more upfront and less scammy and sent out regular updates on the campaign and why it’s important they getting more funding right now…and explain that they actually have a serious chance of winning – whether slightly ahead or behind – that there is a very real benefit to supporters not being depressed and instead seeing that their money might actually accomplish something.
“We need money desperately because we’re losing, helllllllp!!!” is a powerful message, though it risks donors wondering “Am I just burning good money after bad?” On the other hand, “Good news, we actually could win! So, we need your assistance” is a powerful message, as well. Even if just mixed with occasional angst-riden pleas. Encouragement and hope is something candidates understand when they campaign. But weirdly, they forget it when fundraising.
(I should add that the best fundraising emails I've gotten have come Nick Melvoin, the son of good friends, who now sits on the Los Angeles School Board. He's sent out hilarious money requests written by his younger brother ridiculing him, and from his mother asking so politely.)
The bottom line here is that candidates will fundraise however they want. But like most voters, I'm sure, I’ve largely given up reading Subject lines because the messages in them and the mega-tsunami of them inundating me are much, much too demoralizing that it’s no way I want to live my days. I generally check to see who they’re from, decide if I want to donate to them again, and then highlight all of them in my Inbox and click “Delete.”
All of which makes this video sketch with Desi Lydec from The Daily Show one of the few candidate fundraising email joys I’ve come across, almost making it all worth it.
(Not really, but I want to end on a positive note…)
And so, to also all those who jumped directly here from the top, here is what I was talking about – “Meet the Writer Behind Those Campaign Fundraising Emails Clogging Your Inbox.”
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