Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Subverting Campaign Tools 

Wonkette! has a post today on the make-your-own-poster feature on the Bush-Cheney '04 website. Apparently the feature has a built-in blocker for certain words and phrases, but if you're persistent and creative, you can come up with something appropriate. She managed to add "But not if you're gay!" to a campaign poster. I tried it out myself, but the application kept freezing. Perhaps their server is overwhelmed with people trying to add their own unique contributions to the placards.

Yesterday I received in the mail my very own invitation to be a leader in the Massachusetts Bush-Cheney '04 campaign. It even included a personalized photo of George and Laura, thanking me in advance for my generous contribution. There was also a letter notifying me of all the evil, manipulative, and downright not nice things those darned liberal democrats are doing in their mad quest to elect one of their own into the White House. The postage paid return envelope had a little note on it that "your first class stamp is an added gift!" So I wrote on the contribution section a polite note requesting that they remove me from any and all lists, folded the letter and photo, and stuffed them both into the prepaid return envelope and dropped it in the mailbox. They can provide the gift of postage to themselves.

How do I keep getting onto these lists? I'm a registered Democrat, so it's not from the voter registration lists. I think it stems from my having subscribed to the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago. But I've moved since then, and the Bush-Cheney letter had my current address. Are they just sending these to everyone? I hope that's what it is, and perhaps everyone else who received one and is not actually a member of the target demographic will find it as aggravating as I did. It might provide a little fuel on their personal political fire and ensure another non-Bush voter at the polls in November.

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Posted by Rogueslayer at 9:38 AM