Washington Post Reporter Ed O'Keefe Covers "Manipulative," "Semi-Stalkerish" Democrat Fundraising Email Solicitations

Well I was just complaining the media wasn't covering this obvious story.

Ed O'Keefe does.

Including with the "manipulation" angle.

From shaming to semi-stalking, Democrats flood inboxes for last-minute campaign cash

by Ed O'Keefe

...

Ahead of a quarterly fundraising deadline Tuesday night, Democratic campaign committees and House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates flooded donors’ inboxes with last-minute appeals for campaign cash. The deluge has inspired a tribute site, a parody song and fake fundraising pitches­ circulating on Twitter.

No link, dude?

I'm linking you.

So here's the reason for the panicky tone of the solicitations:

...

Robert Epstein, former editor in chief of Psychology Today and senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, said research shows that "people are far more likely to take action to avoid negative events than to produce positive ones."

"Loss is simply more impactful than gain," he said. "People know this intuitively, and so do the campaign managers and others whose job it is to manipulate the ­masses."

...

Turns out, my fake solicitations weren't the ones he was referring to. People have been parodying these for a while.

This one's pretty funny:

A Tumblr site, "Emails from the DCCC," started posting fictional e-mails in July. A message it wrote to appear as if it was from Vice President Biden started with the subject line, "There is Literally No Reason Left to Live."

...

Then there's the song.

An Ohio-based band, Daddy’s Gonna Kill Ralphie, strung together actual subject lines from DCCC e-mails and set them to music that might be strummed by a coffeehouse guitarist.

That song is here. It's... well, I approve of the effort.

Meanwhile, thanks to @rdbrewer4, progressive Thomas B. Edsall notes the hypocrisy in progressive fundraising of "dark money" from plutocrats.

You don't see many pieces in the Establishment Democrat Corporate Media noting this, so, kudos.

posted by Ace at 07:50 PM

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