A while back I reported that various conservative causes were spamming me because I had signed up for all the viable presidential candidates’ e-mail lists during the ’08 primaries. Clearly, I wrote, Republicans were engaged in the wrongheaded practice of passing the e-mail lists around.
I also reported that, at least by my inbox, Democrats were apparently not doing the same thing.
Boy, was I wrong.
Recently, I received an e-mail from New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the woman who took Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat when Clinton vacated it to be Secretary of State.
The e-mail addressed me as “Ken,” so I knew the message had not resulted from anything President Obama’s folks did with his list.
E-mails originating from Obama’s team still address me as “Stupid,” ever since I signed up for his messages using the name “Stupid Poopeyhead.”
In fact, just last week I received an e-mail from Obama with the subject line “Stupid, I need your voice on health care.”
“Stupid: The chance to finally reform our nation's health care system is here,” began the body copy.
And yes, it still tickles me every time an Obama e-mail calls me Stupid.
In any case, I figured Gillibrand probably obtained my e-mail address from the Clinton camp—not a stretch since she is in Clinton’s old Senate seat.
Turns out I was probably right.
An article on Politico last week ranked Clinton’s e-mail list as one of the top five political lists in the land.
“In just the first three months of this year, her campaign—still existing, though in skeletal form—brought in $4.7 million by renting and selling the addresses on the e-mail list to groups ranging from President Obama’s inaugural committee to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign for California governor to her own Senate committee, not to mention EMILY’s List, which seeks to elect female abortion rights supporters, and Media Matters, a progressive organization that monitors the media,” said the article.
“To them, Clinton’s vaunted list—estimated to include as many as 2.5 million email addresses— is a virtual license to print money for Democratic pols and causes,” the article continued.
And never once does the article mention that Clinton and the various causes to which she rents her list are spamming.
In e-mail marketing—and politics is marketing—permission is not transferable. Passing e-mail lists around is a sure way to draw spam complaints from recipients, possibly resulting in delivery troubles as ISPs begin to treat the messages as spam.
But Clinton’s list must be working. Otherwise, no one would rent it.
Ordinarily, I’d launch into a trademark rant here explaining that Clinton and the folks who rent her list are in for some hard lessons in e-mail deliverability as more and more people hit the “report spam” button.
But apparently people aren’t complaining. Maybe politically active people are more tolerant of unsolicited e-mail pertaining to causes they likely hold dear.
However, Clinton’s file is most likely growing staler by the day. It’s unclear what list-hygiene practices the people who manage it are implementing, but plain logic says that with the emotions of her presidential bid long gone, getting new names to replace those that churn out is going to be extremely difficult.
Politicians sharing postal lists is an old practice. Obviously both Republicans and Democrats are trying to duplicate the practice with e-mail lists. And they’re both going to find out it isn’t that simple.
