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Many years ago Mitchell and Webb did a comedy sketch as two German officers in WWII where one asks, “Are we the baddies?” There they are with the Death’s Head symbols on their hats and coffee mugs suspecting that something could be amiss with the side they’ve chosen.
I just received an e-mail from a politician with the subject line of, “My Life Story.” Now, this is a politician from another state for whom I cannot vote for anything, unless he has decided to run for a lower office. (Those who know the Constitution know what I mean here.) Even if I could vote for him, what possible reason could he have for thinking that I want to know anything about him or his life story? I don’t care about his life story. I care about his voting record and what he is doing behind the scenes with legislation in the cloak room. Do people actually open these sorts of campaign e-mails?
I have, a few times and for various reasons in the past, given to politicians. This has gotten me on the e-mail lists for every Republican running anywhere, including ancient Rome. It is very seldom that I can vote for any of these people, but they want my money and support, because I’m important to the cause. (Or, because I got onto the sucker’s list they pass around.) 99.9% of these e-mails I delete without reading, such as ones with the subject line of, “My Life Story.” Which brings me back to the question ending the previous paragraph. Do people actually open these sorts of campaign e-mails? And how out of touch is the party to be sending e-mails out with such stupid subject lines?
And this is where my Mitchell and Webb moment came along. I didn’t ask if we were the baddies. Instead, I asked, Am I the one who is out of touch? Are these e-mails working for the party? Does anyone care whether the Speaker of the House was born a poor Black child? Am I the only one who sees that subject line and asks, “Mister Speaker, you probably think this song is about you, don’t you?” Maybe I am gaslighting myself to believe that the party has marketing experts and polling firms and other tools in place to help craft their messages? Do these e-mails work? Could e-mails that are a little less pompous sounding work better?
Help me out, friends. I want to know. Am I the one who is out of touch? Or is the party continuing to earn its moniker of the stupid party?
Discussion (41)
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I assume that unsolicited emails are some flavor of phishing and delete the en masse. But I suppose like most mass contact advertising they are playing for the 1/2 of 1%. And it’s cheap.
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Not of my time.
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There is a tendency on both sides to look to politicians for salvation in some degree. It started with Kennedy, and reached a pinnacle (nadir) with the Lightbringer... I still get sick at the stomach remembering the kindergarten kids singing songs about Obama.
I don't expect a politician to be a savior; I've already got one, thank you very much. An election is not a search for a priest, it's a job interview.
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