--- Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:54:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Lawrence Kestenbaum <polygonat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> 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 --- Lawrence Kestenbaum, polygonat_private 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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