FC: Why politicians shouldn't spam, from a non-spamming politico

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:54:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Lawrence Kestenbaum <polygon () potifos com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Re: FC: Delaware politico Steve Biener claims he has the right to
 spam

Declan,

[Adapting and extending some of my earlier comments on the Bill Jones
spam controversy...]

As a politician myself -- county commissioner and former legislative
candidate -- I have followed the political-spam issue with great interest.

There once was a web site called PinkPols, which had an archive of
political spam; unhappily, it's gone now.  I can't even find it here:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.galenaweb.com/pinkpols/
Maybe someone could revive it?

Sending mass unsolicited email messages is spam and is always a bad idea
for a political campaign.  Absent a massive cultural and technological
shift, it will always be a bad idea for a responsible mainstream
candidate.

As Isenberg points out, the First Amendment surely immunizes political
messages from any existing or future anti-spam laws in the U.S.  But that
doesn't mean it's a good tactic for someone who is trying to win an
election.

Politicians are tempted to spam because, in electoral politics, an opt-in
audience is never enough.  A political campaign has to communicate
effectively to people who might not choose to hear.

Radio and television ads are decreasingly cost-effective for this because
(1) political ads, if not repeated at saturation levels, are lost in the
noise, (2) cable TV and Internet radio have shattered the audience into
hundreds of specialized pieces, (3) while broadening the geographic scope
far beyond any specific district or constituency.

Political campaign web sites serve to preach to the choir, and perhaps
provide useful information for a relative handful of highly motivated
voters, but are not an effective way to campaign.  With hundreds of
candidates running for dozens of offices in a typical general election,
only the most dedicated and well-informed voter would ever think to seek
out campaign sites of people running for for county commissioner.

Hence, for the foreseeable future, we politicos must print our messages on
old-fashioned paper and distribute them by hand or by postal mail.

                              Larry

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Lawrence Kestenbaum, polygon () potifos com
Washtenaw County Commissioner, 4th District
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com
Polygon, the Dancing Bear, http://potifos.com/polygon
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106




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