Now I feel guilty. See what you think.
I sent a hundred bucks to the Republian Party. Its not perfect, but its our best shot at responsible limited government. Now I can hardly look in my in-box without a mailer from the party begging for yet more money. They send id cards, they send buttons. Mailers aren’t cheap, and it won’t be long before my hundie is dissolved into thrown away junk mail.
The worst of this genre is the “survey.” I naively open these and fill them out thinking it will be a means of trumpeting my side of the Culture War, by singing the praises of low taxes and economic freedom and coaxing the GOP to more of a central position on social issues and the basic separation of church and state. But the questions are absurdly leading, and always conclude with a pitch for more money. I kind of doubt that any money is wasted by actually processing those survey results.
So some poor guy called me at work with a pitch for how Obama is “an empty suit” (he can’t have believed that in a literal sense), and how I must be grateful for the latest pin to show up in my mailbox. I interrupted him to say I’m not sending any more money this year, and I feel like all I’ve sent in has gone to sending me mailers for more. “I’m not going to respond to that,” quoth he.
So now I feel guilty. I used to work as a phone solicitor for L.A. County Republican HQ. He was only doing his job. I’m creating bad karma. Its painful to be me.
As long as the GOP tolerates and supports moderates like McCain, squishes like Lindsey Graham and the girls from Maine, count me as DTS. I won’t give them a dime. In the vernacular, the party needs to grow a pair.
Ron,
It is painful to be a Republican today. I don’t miss the party one bit.
I really think it is going the way of the Whig Party.
Ron, I agree with you 100%. I sent $100 to the McCain campaign during the Presidential race, and within a week had an “invitation” from his wife Cindy to help fund a birthday celebration for him. Then the repeated mailers about how the party is under attack, blah blah blah, all asking for money. The latest mailer is from Michael Steel enclosing a survey with loaded questions that truly will make the survey results meaningless. It is a real turn off – and I suspect there is a company or non profit raking off a big percentage of any money raised for their “costs”. Itis no wonder the ranks of those stating they are Indepedent is increasing.
I get this crap, too. It goes right into the round file.
I can only guess at who is stupid enough to fall for this survey garbage.
And then I look at the incoherent rant-comments of “the great one” and “Mr. Freedom” and then I know.
Lurk,
You are so right, the GOP should purge and center/right types and make a party exclusively made up of Talabani types.
As a Democrat I would love to see the fringe Talabani’s in charge of the GOP. By getting rid of the rational and moderate voices like Susan Collins and such the GOP will have no chance at winning power back.
Want real fun? Donate some to each and watch the mail really pour in.
But would you really rather have only large donors supporting Candidates?
it is good for the post office, they live off of junk mailers.
How dumb do they really think we are?
Yes, we too receive the frequent surveys from the Republican Party. I am honored. They have selected “me” to be the voice of my city in answering their policy questions as if they really read that part of the form. All they are looking for is your contribution and credit card number on the back of the form.
There are other charities that we have called or emailed requesting that unless they stop wasting our contribution money on their mailers we will simply stop sending them donations. One responded by saying they need to stay in our face in hopes that we will continue funding their worthy causes. While this deluge may work for some donors, we have stopped funding those charities. In fact we received a letter on Saturday “telling us” how much we need to provide and the final date for that donation. Talk about being bold and aggressive.
The other side does the same stuff. I prefer to donate to a few selected candidates that I like and/or perceive to be under funded, and not give to the party directly. I’d say that once every three months I get a survey from the DNC asking me to rank issues of importance (education, health care, immigration etc., but it’s clear that the real goal is that I check one of the donation boxes. The same is true other charities. I have a stack of address labels from a dozen different charities. We receive new labels from St. Jude every other week, and as far as I now we have only made one very modest donation to them. I’ve probably cost them money at this point. What bugs me the most is that we give to a couple of environmental/animal non-profits monthly, and I very much support their stated goals, but our names have now been sold or given to every “green” group in the country. So far we have not received any calls, but tons of mail. Some of them send out big packets with slick heart breaking pictures of suffering animals. They also include stickers & pens. It seems ironic that they are supposed to be pro-conservation yet they waste so much in printing and postage. It would be one thing to send a reminder card, or e-mail, but this is total overkill.
Actually, I like to donate to every party I can Reps, Dems, Libs, Green, AIP, You name it! No in my name, but to peopl I hate!
Larry, “How dumb do they really think we are?”, well in Fullerton the voters have elected and re-elected Dick Jones 4 times, that pretty well sums it up.
Just for the record the picture that Art put on top of my entry was not chosen by me. Its not a picture of me (all middle-aged white guys with gray hair do not look alike), and I never meant to say that I’m ashamed of the GOP.
Ron,
For once it wasn’t me! Not sure who put that up.
I imagine the sentiment expressed in that pic is shared by many…
Ron.
Not having met you I thought that distinguished looking, but troubled, Republican was you.Sad.
Tony. Knowing some of the Fullerton history as told to me by Bruce I feel your pain.
Lesson #1 as taught to me by one of my two mentors when I was running for MV city council.
The vast majority of the electorate really is not concerned about key policy or financial issues.
Simply promote “public safety” and “no pot holes.”
Following our election results I must admit he was right.
When we get together ata future Grover Cleveland event I will be happy to share some campaign strategy to unseat Mr. Wonderful