Full text:
Ann, when you chip in $3 or whatever contribution you're able to make, you put your own hard-earned money on the line and you vouch for Barack and me. You vouch for Democrats across the country, and the things we've done and will do to help the middle class. I can't tell you how much that means to both of us.Questions:
Tomorrow night we're facing our biggest and final FEC quarterly fundraising deadline before Election Day.
So chip in $3 or more right now.
If you've saved your payment information, your donation will go through immediately.
QUICK DONATE: $3
QUICK DONATE: $10
QUICK DONATE: $25
QUICK DONATE: $50
QUICK DONATE: $100
Or donate another amount:
https://my.democrats.org/Elect-Democrats-2014
I have a lot of respect for you, Ann, and I know you understand how important this is.
Let's win.
Joe
1. What's the theory behind "respect" for me? Am I supposed to feel like Joe Biden will withdraw his respect if I don't pony up? Is this email for women only or do they throw this "respect" business at men too? (I'm about to give you all of my money... Not.)
2. What's with the $3 donation level? Is it a psychological trick to get the recipient to trade up to $10? Like, I might think I'll only go for the lowest level, but instead of being $5, it's only $3, which seems unduly chintzy? Where's my self-respect? Suddenly, I'm going for the 10. Not me, of course. I don't give any politicians money. Just saying 3 is weird.
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43 comments:
The song "Eleanor Rigby" goes through my head when you write about these emails.
All the lonely people. Being kept company by seemingly personal platitudes from important people.
If he really respected you, he'd know you prefer Althouse.
Give his copy editor credit for taking out the "still":
I still have a lot of respect for you, Ann.
Yes, but will you still love me tomorrow?
As the old saying goes, respect must be earned. Clearly you've earned Joe Biden's respect. You've earned it through your toiling middle-classyness. You've earned it by having your email on a list possessed by Democratic fundraising organizations. You've earned with your having of lady-parts. But, be careful, you could lose it! If you don't give at least $3, you could lose the respect of that charming silver fox Joe Biden. You wouldn't want to lose his respect, would you?
When you go around saying the kind of stuff Biden says, you have to spend a lot of time reassuring people that, despite appearances, you do respect them. There's probably an earlier e-mail from Joe in your inbox that starts "You know, Ann, you're pretty hot for an older chick."
I have a lot of respect for you, Ann. And I'll still respect you in the morning.
Ann, when you chip in $3 or whatever contribution you're able to make, you give affirmative consent to what Barack and I intend to do to this country.
Or perhaps he should have signed off this way:
I have a lot of respect for you, Ann, R E S P E C T
What you want
Baby, I got
What you need
Do you know I got it?
All I'm askin'
Is for a little respect
...
Ooo, your kisses
sweeter than honey
And guess what?
So is my money
He must have written that in the morning.
"Ann, when you chip in $3 or whatever contribution you're able to make, you give affirmative consent to what Barack and I intend to do to this country."
Not so. She was drunk on his coolness.
I really don't understand these "personalized" form letters--they must actually work, or marketers wouldn't use them so much. But it seems it would be far more effective to acknowledge that yes, this is the same targeted form letter that is being sent out to everyone else of your demographic profile, touching on the issues the pollsters think you care about, and ultimately asking for some funds. Pretending Joe Biden knows your name, and has respect for you? What sort of low-information moron would be moved by that, or at least not feel patronized?
Are the feelings mutual?
Seeing how much Joe says they respect you and all, if you elect to donation "another amount" and enter $0.10 or less, it actually cost them more than that to process your "gift".
Just one way to return the respect you have been shown...
Not so. She was drunk on his coolness.
Or frightened by McCain and Sarah Palin.
Anne,
You might want to put some ice on that.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
Well, I don't think it's because you're a woman, because I got exactly the same email. Actually, I really enjoy the fundraising requests, and the way they try and gin up paranoia abut all the evil things the republicans would like to do if only they were in power. But my favorite emails are the ones that say "LEVI - this is how much you've donated so far this year -0- ....
Biden was heavily mocked for his "Omnia Iraqus est divisa in partes tres" statement. I didn't think that was fair at the time, and it looks prescient now. Had he carried the day on just that one issue, he would have done a great service to his country.
The Same Sarah Palin who could see the trouble Obama was blindsided by from her front porch in Alaska? That Sarah Palin? The same one who called out Emanuel's Last Aid Kits for those over 75, and the useless eaters among the young?
I would be very interested in hearing a statement from Palin that was heavily mocked at the time that didn't turn out to be reasonably prescient.
After all, what newspapers do you read? I read pretty much all of them that come to my attention. I guess the shock there was that she wasn't spoon fed her agenda by some un-elected editorial board.
I would be interested to hear what she especially objected to in Palin and whether those objections have held up over time.
"Or frightened by McCain and Sarah Palin."
Well, everybody makes mistakes. I bet McCain wouldn't have blown off his intelligence briefings. In fact, I'm sure of it.
Was this the morning after you voted ?
Just kidding.
garage: "Or frightened by McCain and Sarah Palin."
Meh.
Any excuse in a storm one supposes.
tim in vermont: "I would be interested to hear what she especially objected to in Palin and whether those objections have held up over time."
Dude, that was like, a super duper long time ago. Who can even remember back that far and what difference, at this point, does it make?
Before sending the money to a P O Box upon suggestion, we must clear up one thing. Does yes mean yes when the respected mark one is drunk?
It's the new $3 bill with Obama's image on it.
I have a lot of respect for you, Ann.
Literally, as Joe Biden would say.
The annoying bit is there is an email template that looks like
"I have a lot of respect for you, $FirstName$."
It's just dripping with sincerity.
Does Tom Steyer get the same email?
Even at the $3 level, your contribution costs more than that in record keeping expenses.
But then they can boast in ads that 99 percent of their donors give less that 50 bucks.
They don't have to report that 99 percent of their incoming cash comes from the billionaires in the other one percent of donors.
But will he still have respect for you in the morning?
The purpose of the three bucks is to pull down the average donation.
The Democrats need this. They campaign on the fact that the Republicans are evil and get all their money from the special interest. This means they can't be seen as getting all of their money from the special interests.
So if you're getting a lot of $50,000 donations, you need a hell of a lot more $3 donations to drag down that average contribution, for the soundbite, dontcha know?
I guessed it was from Obama.
eric,
>>So if you're getting a lot of $50,000 donations, you need a hell of a lot more $3 donations to drag down that average contribution, for the soundbite, dontcha know?
Not at all. You have to learn how to lie with statistics.
Say you have 9 donors of $3, and one at $50K.
Your soundbite is then "90% of our donations are under $5."
Of course, the *average* donation is $5003. That part you leave out.
:)
DanTheMan:
The [donkey] cart was constructed with framed statistics, which through decades of scrutiny has exposed its fraudulent foundation, and left it unbalanced and susceptible. I think there was a similar outcome, if perhaps with different causes, for other carts.
Biden could have asked for $2, but then he would have felt cheap.
Wait what? Do people actually believe Biden is even aware of this mass mailing? That he even chose these words?
"Even at the $3 level, your contribution costs more than that in record keeping expenses."
Then all who hate them should give them $3 to subtract from their total.
"Then all who hate them should give them $3 to subtract from their total."
You just don't get it. I don't hate them. I just think they are fools. And you bought it. A man with no resume. And you voted for him to make yourself feel virtuous. "I voted for the black man."
"Then all who hate them should give them $3 to subtract from their total."
Record keeping expenses? Your naïveté is so cute, Ann
Bob Barker beating up Adam Sandler
C'mon Robert, don't you remember the fierce urgency of change?
Brando said I really don't understand these "personalized" form letters...Pretending Joe Biden knows your name, and has respect for you? What sort of low-information moron would be moved by that, or at least not feel patronized?
Good direct-marketing tactics demand this format. Consider which works better:
"Dear Twinkie-lovers: you should all buy Twinkies today and enjoy them!"
"Dear Ann: you should buy a Twinkie today and enjoy it!"
Americans are probably more aware of the tell-tale signs of marketing techniques like this these days.
But it does still work, as you, Brando, suggest, mostly with the low-info voters (which is increasingly a term meant to identify dumb people, as you also suggest).
"They start with "Hey-" because telemarketers have found that many emails from actual friends begin that way, so it's a manner of tricking the eye into stopping at the email slugline. Then they pretend a friendship that doesn't exist -- all of these emails are written as if Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama have a personal relationship with the addressee -- and conjure up some dire emergency just over the horizon.
Then they ask you for money. They often ask for $3, which is not a lot of money, of course ($3 barely covers the costs of processing the credit card transaction), but that $3 indicates the sender is a "live one" -- a Glengarry lead -- and also invests that person emotionally in the cause.
It's a well-known trick of psychological manipulation that if you can get someone to make a small gesture -- a token donation -- the very act of making that tiny donation will tend to make them more emotionally invested in the cause than they otherwise would have been. Now that they have "skin in the game," as it were, even just a tiny amount of skin, they become more reliable partisans in all aspects, from donating further to increasing likelihood of voting to donating time to canvas and so forth.
I think this effect is related to the psychological failing that keeps people at casinos trying to win back all the money they lost (and losing even more money). Once someone has a Sunk Cost, they will be irrationally invested in redeeming that Sunk Cost, in turning that Cost into a Win.
So these emails are crafted by psychological manipulation experts drawn hailing from the shabby field of telemarketing and cold-call high-pressure sales.
And the Democrats send millions of them every day."
Ace, from Ace of Spades HQ
And THAT is why Ace is one of the first blogs I check in the AM.
"It's a well-known trick of psychological manipulation that if you can get someone to make a small gesture -- a token donation -- the very act of making that tiny donation will tend to make them more emotionally invested in the cause than they otherwise would have been."
I was just reading that concept in another, more general context, that the "recipe" for getting someone to do you a favor is to get him to do the first favor. After that, he'll have come to believe that the right choice was made the first time, and he's basically agreeing with his own good judgment -- which feels right -- by doing the next favor (and the next).
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