Day: August 21, 2002

RNC Seeks Donors With Poor Memories

So I’m browsing through my pile of mail, and come across a letter from none other than the Republican National Committee. Interesting, I think; I don’t generally get political mailings — let’s have a look.
So I open it, and I see:

There’s just one problem. It shows my “Membership Status” as “Lapsed”.
And I’ve never given the RNC a dime in my life, nor ever had any association with the group whatsoever.
This, I think, is an example of a technique I’m beginning to see employed more and more frequently with groups soliciting donations. Somebody in development somewhere decided that it is far easier to convince people to give money to a group if they think they already did so in the past. Nevermind if they never actually did: just try to convince them of it anyway!
I’ve also noticed this several times because I (perhaps foolishly) actually donated to the local police association, and have since been besieged by law enforcement and emergency service organizations calling to get their piece of the Bear pie. I am fairly sure that several of them used this exact technique — just a few days back, a representative began the call by saying he’d like to “Thank me” for my previous donation last year, and ask if I would donate again. Which was, unless I’m going completely senile, a bald-faced lie, as I had never donated to the group in question ever before.
(I would document more clearly the groups in question, but as they were phone calls, I wasn’t in blogger-mode at the time and my main concern was making them go away, not reporting. But I shall the next time…)
Anyway, this is fairly low stuff, and I’m certainly unimpressed with the RNC for resorting to it. It’s certainly unethical, and it wouldn’t shock me to hear if it was illegal, as well. (Is there a lawyer in the house?)
I’ve sent an inquiry to their web contact; we’ll see if they come back with a reasonable explanation. In the meantime, I’d like to hear from others who have had similar experiences. Am I the only one noticing this trend?

Republicans of Georgia: Thanks!

Well, the Younger is out, even if McKinney the Elder still has a chance to save his anti-Semitic hide in a runoff.
I’m struck by the whole Republican crossover vote issue in this election. CNN quotes McKinney in her concession as saying:
“Tonight we saw massive Republican crossover into the Democratic primary, and it looks like the Republicans wanted to beat me more than the Democrats wanted to keep me,”
The interesting thing to me here is that traditionally, “abuse” of the ability to cross-over and vote in the other guy’s primary is generally intended to ensure that the weaker candidate wins — so then your party’s candidate can defeat them easily in the election.
In this case, Republican cross-over voters actually seem to have voted their conscience, and did the country a service while doing so.
I’m sure the Republican candidate will have a harder election battle ahead of them because of this. But it, will, we can hope, be a battle based on issues — or at least, more so than it would have been if I-haven’t-been-kidnapped-by-aliens-but-my-brain-has Ms. McKinney were still in the race.
I think all we can say to the Republicans of the 4th District of Georgia is “Thanks.” And let us remember that occasionally, once in a while, if you look long and hard enough, you can find honor in American politics.