Monty Python has the definitive word on spam, as far as I am concerned. (If you need a refresher, or have not seen the sketch, you can see it here.) But I tried to add another wrinkle to the topic in my Washington Post Magazine article that runs in print this coming weekend, “Who writes those pleading political emails clogging your inbox?”
Here is the lede:
Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) wants you to know that his campaign war chest is “as dry as the heart of a haystack.” Worried about “getting beat like a garage sale couch,” the senator—currently up for reelection—has been “running back and forth like a dog at a meat factory” to find money, and is as “nervous as a cat at a waterpark.” His ally Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) notes that the state of Kennedy’s fundraising is less than stellar: The Louisiana Republican “has missed almost every single deadline so far, and leading into October, this is beyond bad news.”
To most Americans, political fundraising emails are an inbox-clogging nuisance. But recently I set out to view them from a different angle—examining the artistry that goes into writing them and the strategies they deploy to try to separate donors from their money.
Such spam is an exceedingly rare domain where politicians regularly go negative on themselves—emphasizing missed fundraising goals and playing up the odds that they might lose. The message is often stark: Immediately give whatever you can—$5? $50? $500?—or calamity will ensue.
You can read the rest of the article here.