An Open Letter To Every Candidate Who Abused My Email Address This Year2010-11-16

Dear (Candidates, Causes, Operatives and Party Organizations),

Now that all the ballots have been counted and the 2010 elections have come to a merciful close, my friends and I would like to take this opportunity to spam you in return with some useful advice about the Top 5 things you did online this year that made us wish we never followed, friended or funded you. 

We respect the time you have taken out of your lives to run for office. Our democracy depends on you risking your family’s financial future while eating a steady diet of cold pizza and tearing away your last shred of dignity to get us to fill in the blank next to your name. 

Still, it’s clear neither you nor your advisors get this Internet thingy, and since I’m already on every 2012 candidate and party donor list, I’d like to take a moment of your time before you start bombarding us again to share with you what won’t work and how to make a few Americans a bit less angry with you.

Re-Runs Get Lower Ratings--If you are going to send a fundraising solicitation to my email inbox, please have the decency to not copy and paste your last 27 emails. If I already know your appeal is going to whine about unfair attacks by special interests who smoke cigars made out of thousand dollar bills, and urge me to fight back along with all the other little people by sending you my $50 before midnight (the fifth message you’ve sent me this week), I’m probably going to hit the delete button before reading.

Famous Names Don’t Fool Me--Just because you put the name James Carville or John McCain in the “Sender” line doesn’t make me any more likely to open your missive. In fact, if I believed the Rajun Cajun or Senator McCain was sending me an email, I was most likely already taken to the cleaners by the third cousin of Nigeria’s deposed royal family, and wouldn’t have money to give you; however, if you would deposit the U.S. sum of $50,001 into my Swiss bank account, I assure you I will gladly repay your kindness with a herd of fertile mountain goats.

The Rules of TV Don’t Apply--Smart political TV buyers will tell you there are about 15-20 networks to consider when placing ads. Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network? Not so much. That’s why despite the proliferation of TV outlets and TiVo, carpet bombing  with mediocre ads is still de rigueur. The same strategy doesn’t apply for the Internet; it’s a much more interactive medium with much shorter viewing habits. If you know your targeted TV audience isn’t watching Sesame Street, don’t you think you should put the same amount of thought into how you communicate with potential voters on the Internet--and how your target audience gets their political information?

The Social in Social Media Stands for Social--Imagine if I invited you over to my house for a lovely evening of fine conversation, but all I kept saying to you all night was, “Aren’t I Wonderful? Give Me Money! Don’t You Want to Stop Armageddon? Give Me Money!” you probably wouldn’t accept my next invitation. My Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn friends are people I dialogue with because we have shared experiences or similar interests. Perhaps if you tried engaging us in meaningful conversations about the future of our city, state or nation and kept in touch on a regular basis in between elections, your requests for my money and my vote would go much further--and I would be much more likely to be your online advocate within my community. And while I’m on the social media subject, I agree with you; it is a wonderful tool. That being said, if I ever catch you spinning a journalist about your electoral chances because you have 5,000 “friends” on Facebook, you will automatically lose my vote. (And journalists, if I ever see you write about the number of Facebook friends a candidate has to prove viability, I’ll assume you are either new to the game or you mistakenly believe by being nice to the googly-eyed, fuzzy purple spotted Internet monster that it won’t swallow up your newspaper.)

You Aren’t the Only One With The Keys To The Castle--During the crucial campaign months of September and October, I received an average of twelve politically themed emails each day (15 on Mondays) not counting messages on Twitter or Facebook. Want to guess how many of them I read? Just because email is free doesn’t mean it doesn’t cost anything. In fact, it costs my belief in your cause and your party. Campaigns spend millions of dollars producing television ads because they want people to watch them (and TV is still king), but in a new media attention deficit environment the number one cost is being interesting. There’s a reason non-traditional candidates and unusual ads go viral online: it’s because money is no substitute for originality. Take some time to craft a thoughtful message, make a homemade video or ask me to knock on my neighbors’ doors when you canvass my street on Saturday. I’m more likely to respond because you respected my time and sought out my counsel--and more likely to pay attention amidst the maelstrom of propaganda up and down the ballot.

Please don’t feel badly. We want you to do better, and we don’t even think of you as the black sheep of the Internet family--that privilege is reserved for the insidious cable companies’ attempts to kill net neutrality and the Chinese government stifling online dissent--but in this case, finishing third in a two-person race isn’t such a bad thing. On behalf of my friends, we hope you enjoy a long, long offseason.