Proof the McCain Campaign Has No Idea What It’s Doing
Posted on September 30, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 35 Comments
It thinks that I am part of the “McCain Ohio Team.” I have no earthly idea what they’re thinking, man. But I guess hope springs eternal.
Into the spam bin it goes. And before any of you McCain fans complain, allow me to note that all the e-mail I get from the Obama campaign gets stuffed into the spam bin too. And if the Bob Barr campaign gets it in its collective head to send me e-mail, you can guess where it’s going, too.
But Nader: Nader gets recycled.
Well, give them credit for getting the state right. The Obama primary campaign called me in Florida to vote in the NH primary. They even offered to drive me there.
I got spammed by (someone claiming to be) the RNC a while back. (With the reversed first/last name that’s a common sign of spam to me. Not sure how it happened, but my email address with my name reversed got into a spam db…I’ve even gotten advance-fee fraud offers by snailmail to that name.)
I’ve also gotten a couple other spam messages attacking Obama.
I don’t see anything in my inbox or recently-nuked spam from the DNC. Not sure if that’s because they didn’t send any, or they were so spammy the filter just dropped them to /dev/null.
I keep getting emails from some ghost writer for Sarah Palin calling me part of the Michigan McCain/Palin team. Trouble is, I support nothing of their campaign, and I don’t live in Michigan. Double fail.
Perhaps this is just me being paranoid, but is there any way to check that they haven’t fiddled with your registration?
Call your local Clerk of Courts (or whomever in your state’s structure maintains the list) and ask how to verify your registration; different states have different procedures.
John, I’m being spammed by at least a dozen political organizations, most of them Elephantine, but some from the Donkey persuasion. We’re getting a half-dozen human phone calls a day, too. (Part of that is that we have a House Divided — Spice is a member of the other tribe.)
I am going to be so glad when this election is over.
You should keep Bob Barr emails, they are getting hilariously desperate for money. All of the candidates beg for it, of course, but some of Barr’s emails have all but promised their first born child to anyone who donates money.
John,
You got an e-mail? Hell, John McCain sent me a voter registration form in the snail mail. (I’m already registered, thanks.)
So I sent him a note telling him what to do with any future mail.
One year I got letters from both national republican and democratic parties, both thanking me for my generous contribution last year ($0 in both cases) and begging me to be at least as generous this year.
They hire contractors to send this begging mail, and often they don’t get the best people. They greet you as a member of their team because they hope you are one. Or hope that after you read the letter you will become one. It’s sort of like when clueless waitresses flirt with gay guys in hopes of a bigger tip.
As for monkeying with your registration, they wouldn’t. What would be the point? It only matters in a primary. In November you can vote for whoever you want, no matter how you are registered.
> As for monkeying with your registration, they wouldn’t. What would be the point?
Yes, they would. The GOP would do anything they have to to get people they even suspect will be voting for Obama off the rolls. If that means monkeying with your registration just so they have a way of saying your registration is ‘suspect,’ that’s what they’ll do. In Michigan, they’re trying to get people who have had their houses foreclosed on off the rolls, since “they can’t verify their address,” the idea being that people who have had their houses foreclosed on are unlikely to vote Republican. Can’t say as I disagree with the logic on that one.
Considering the massive amounts of voter intimidation, voting machine shenanigans, gerrymandering, etc., that the GOP has engaged in the previous 7+ years, I think you’d be naive in the _extreme_ to believe anything these guys say. I’d have to look up if one of them told me the sky was blue, just to make sure.
Scalzi continues to post irrelevancies, despite a corrective communique the Executive Committee of The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club emailed to him and which has been roundly ignored.
Here it is for all low-brow, insensitive and uncultured Whatever readers to see. Rise up and demand more Beauteous Ghlaghghee and less other stuff that nobody reads!
O Less And Less Great Scalzi, it has been unconscionable length of time since the last Beauteous Ghlaghghee update and pictures.
In addition, your latest Seal of Approval Award expires tomorrow and we of Executive Committee of The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club are confident this state of affairs horrifies you as much as it does us.
So we have some suggestions. Stop posting things that nobody of any import cares about, and start posting things that we of The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club do care about. In case this is too subtle for you, we propose that you post an update on the current going-ons of Her Most Glorious Shimmering Radiant Perfection with a picture showing Her Perfect Essence to full advantage. This means in focus, filling the frame and well-centered.
Things that should not be in the picture:
1. You
2. Anteater-Thing
3. Silly props nobody of any import cares about
It is acceptable to have Mighty Lopsided Cat and TempCat Zeus in the picture, although they certainly deserve their own posts.
We are confident you will get right on this very important task and look forward to reading the Whatever with pleasure.
The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club
@ 8 SAP, The local Republicans called last night and asked to speak with my husband–I can only guess they wanted to speak with the “man of the house” so I let my teenaged son loose on them. He echoed many of your fine sentiments with the added note that he hoped they would have a massive defeat so he won’t be drafted for McCain’s endless wars.
I don’t think they will call us again.
I donated $100 to the Obama campaign some while back and they’ve been persistently calling me ever since. While I will say that they’ve been cordial, accommodating, and seemingly very sincere about their willingness to take me off the call list and very apologetic about previous failures to do so, it took four requests to get it to happen.
The thing the Obama campaign doesn’t seem to get is that $100 was the sum total of the money I could afford to donate to anyone this year. If they’d get their rears in office already and do something about the economy, perhaps that will change for the 2012 campaign.
I have been getting spam from both parties on my hotmail address which is quite funny really as I live in Canada. Oh, and I’m still an English citizen so I don’t even get to vote up here. I wish you all luck in the coming weeks and may your spam-filters stand firm in the face of adversity.
Vian@#5.
John can call and ask if he’s worried about it, but it’s just paranoia on your part I’d have to say. Just ask one question, why on earth would they want to change someone’s registration?
Is someone going to go to the voting booth wanting to vote one way, then find out their registration is now Republican and decide they have to vote McCain?
The most being registered one party or another can affect is what primary you vote in. And not always that. I don’t know how it works in Ohio, but in Michigan (where I’m from) you can vote in either primary whatever party you’re registered as (or no party at all for that matter).
The thought process on political mailing (especially e-mail which is basically free) is that it’s better to hit a thousand people who aren’t interested, than to miss even one that is.
On the positive side, my congressman mailed me a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot. I’d been wondering how to sign up for that, without yet putting forth any actual effort to figuring it out – and now he’s gone and done it for me. I am pleased. :) Now I too can google all those initiatives that always seem to get tacked on to the end, about whether we should give various groups of people money, and vote with some intelligence.
(Of course, I was going to vote for him anyway, considering that the opposing guy is a rabidly antigay wacko.)
Rigel @ 15: I don’t think he’s talking about changing your party affiliation, but about completely invalidating your registration (eg by telling the registrar you’ve moved or something). Then getting your ballot tossed because the information on the rolls isn’t valid (see Tumbleweed @ 10). That’s the theory, at any rate.
What I hate is political street spam. Has anyone ever actually been persuaded by a sign that says “VOTE SUCHANDSUCH”? Perhaps you were unsure which one of the candidates would be less able to screw things up, until you had the fortunate chance of seeing a sign telling you what to do. Heres a sign:
“SEND ME MONEY”
Think it will work? I don’t either.
I second the motion made by chang, who is not chang @ 11.
I keep getting spam from the GOP. My wife, who is a small “r” republican, never gets anything from them, either email or paper mail. I have a stock reply that berates them for assuming that I would ever betray my background, ethics, or intelligence by giving them money. I know it just tells them that the address they sent to is valid but it feels so good to respond.
Obama’s people have been calling my house since the primaries, and this weekend they even came by for a visit to get me to contribute to Obama’s campaign. It’s cute and all, but both me and my wife have been registered libertarians since before we were able to vote. (In PA you can register your party affiliation before when you get your drivers license.)
I think they are just assuming that we are democrats because of the area we live in (which is highly democrat in make up.) Maybe you’re in the same situation with the McCain camp..
I haven’t noticed any political spam, which is strange because my email address is absolutely filthy spam wise (50+ per day).
What am I doing wrong?
Is it that thing where Amex says I’m dead? They promised to stop telling people that.
And isn’t the Necro-American vote still important anyway?
(More seriously, is it possible to give money to one of the presidential campaigns without ending up on endless mailing lists, et al?)
Some party worker read “Old Man’s War” and made the logical conclusion and added you to a mailing list, not knowing that you are the shinning example of why one should never assume an author’s beliefs from his or her fiction.
The OH Secretary of State is a Democrat (and on the record as staunchly against voter-purge shenanigans), so it’s unlikely that they’re fiddling with registrations in order to help McCain.
As a conservative, I have to say I wouldn’t care if Mr Scalzi did keep any Obama emails while spam-banning McCain emails.
For crying out loud, it is his freaking email. If he wanted to, he could reply to the latest spam from mortgage brokers/online pharmacies/have good travel deals fly-by-night people.
I do find it surprising that the McCain campaign would think Mr. Scalzi is a potential supporter. Somebody screwed up on buying the email list (Ordered Republicans, got Democrats/independents).
You sure it wasn’t for that Scalvi guy?
I volunteered for a weekend for Candidate X in the fine state of Y knocking on doors.
In theory, the list of houses to visit was composed of (1) people who supported X, but could use encouragement to actually go to the polls and (2) real undecideds who would appreciate more information. In practice, we also bothered some people who didn’t want to talk to anyone about the election and some people who opposed candidate X (people move frequently in the area). We also registered a bunch of voters.
The truth is that if you are not going to vote for candidate X, the campaign really does not want to waste your time and theirs by bothering you. On the other hand, they really really want all their supporters to vote. Given the imperfection of the records and algorithms used to determine who you support, they mess up.
Get Out the Vote will continue to play a gigantic role as long as so few people vote. I can see why the campaigns act as they do, even though I don’t like it.
I haven’t been getting any e-mail spam, but the state Democratic Party has been assaulting us with their wardialer for weeks. Phone rings, it’s the DP, we pick up, hear nothing but click-hum. Apparently they have no actual humans available, so they’ll just pester us with their telemarketing device to make sure we keep them in our thoughts. Which we are. Thoughts of extreme graphic violence.
Two “put us on your do not call please goddammits” haven’t had an effect yet…
Voter helplines are also essential. not everyone knows how to vote, or where their polling place is, or other important details. Even on the day of the election.
#23: “Some party worker read “Old Man’s War” and made the logical conclusion”
What ‘logical conclusion’ would that be? Even aside from assuming an author’s political viewpoints from their fiction, I’m not sure what logical conclusion could be gleaned from OMW even by itself.
Tumbleweed @ 30: What ‘logical conclusion’ would that be? Even aside from assuming an author’s political viewpoints from their fiction, I’m not sure what logical conclusion could be gleaned from OMW even by itself.
There are a lot of people who take it as a given that anyone who writes military science fiction obviously must be a right-winger.
Rigel@15; thanks for the info. I’m not American, so I don’t know the intricacies which are possible. But as Wim @17 noted, I was more worried that they’d pulled a swiftie and completely screwed up the registration to disenfranchise a person (or, hell, a whole bunch of people) who might not vote for them. I realise no one can see you mark your ballot, or drop your piece of pottery into the jar, or whatever.
And Wim@17, you were right in all things but one – I am no man.
You’d throw away an email from Mr Incredible?
Captain Button –
There are a lot of people who take it as a given that anyone who writes military science fiction obviously must be a right-winger.
Yeah, that would be a pretty bad assumption.
You’re not fooling anyone John, we’ve read your science fiction! We *KNOW* you’re really just like all your s.f. characters and therefore a ‘closet republican’. You ‘Heinlein in Sheep’s clothing’ you! ;)