In one of the more boneheaded email related moves I’ve seen from a political group ever the Obama / Biden campaign has announced that people can go to their website, enter in the email address of a Republican friend, pay some money, and the campaign will send an email to your (soon to be ex-) friend on your behalf.
This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life by letting them know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign.
Simply enter their name and email address below. Then, we’ll send them a message letting them know they inspired you to donate. (Don’t worry—we won’t hold on to any of their information.) Obama for America
To quote a friend of mine: “WHAT THE … I DON’T EVEN”
This is going to cause massive delivery nightmares. Do you really think recipients of these emails are not going to hit “This is spam” or complain or block the sender? I have no doubt this list is going to be full of spamtraps and IPs are going to get listed on numerous blocklists and blocked by a bunch of ISPs. And then, THEN we’re going to get the complaints from Obama for America about how evil and anti-American the ISPs and spam filtering companies are for blocking their mail.
If I were a real conspiracy theorist, I’d say that, somehow, the blocking would be turned into Yet Another Law trying to regulate the Internet. It would be named something catchy that has a “meaningful” acronym. Like the “Barring Online Networks from Hindering Elected Americans Deploying Email Dialog” (BONEHEADED act). Or the “Open Access to Political Dialog” (OAPD act).
This is so not going to end well.
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Groan. Can’t wait until they get spamblocked and try to blame it on their opposing party.
Political parties have some of the cruddiest lists in the country. (“We’re so nice and/or important that nobody would want to block us.”) First I doubt that many people are stupid enough to do this, and the ones that do won’t make their already dubious reputation much worse.
Email stupidity is bipartisan, but this is by far the dumbest move I have seen in political email yet. And as a subscriber to dozens of political email lists, I’ve seen some pretty dumb moves.
You know, if I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d seriously consider the possibility that the person who thought up this incredibly moronic idea was working for the other side…. But I see constant evidence of the *really* dirty lists that politicians use, because a bunch of the spam that they send ends up in my spamtrap. I’ve blogged about some of this on the MainSleaze blog.
+1 to Ken’s comment — the stupidity is bipartisan.