Several years ago, I donated money to a Republican congressional candidate. The guy went to high school with my older brothers, both of whom spoke highly of him, and there wasn’t much objectionable (as far as Republicans running in a conservative district go). But while I was donating to a Republican, I was also donating against another Republican. Truth be told, I would have donated to anyone who was running against that particular office-holder.
I don’t regret the $250. I do regret the world of pestering that it has brought down upon me. I just got off the phone with a “personal” phone call from (a) Mike Huckabee (recording). I finally picked it up this time because I was tired of dodging the 202 area code calls. He was imploring me to sign a petition to kick the UN out of New York. Before I got Mr. Huckabee’s attention, I was constantly being contracted by Newt Gingrich and Steve Forbes.
So as we embark on a new election, I’ve been considering making a light donation to the candidate of my choice. I don’t want to bring on more pestering, but maybe since my name is already on the lists, it will result in an equal amount of pestering.
It’s ironic, I suppose, that one form of speech (obnoxious phone calls) is inhibiting my willingness to engage in another form of speech ($$$$).
Perhaps this is an argument in favor of anonymous donations. Do we need an anti-transparency law?
You know how when you hear a word you’ve never heard before, you hear it three more times that day?
I was at a trade show today, one feature of which is that if you want some company’s tchotchkes, you let them scan your badge, which gives you their name, employer, and e-mail address, and brands you as a possible sales lead. It reminded me that stopping by a booth once to ask “How does your stuff work?” resulted in (quite literally) ten years of phone calls trying to sell it to me.
user-confbadge2009@domain.com
If you have a decent mail system, it lets you do user-(anything) and it will accept and deliver mail to you. Some mail systems use the + character for the same thing.
And then you just write a rule (client or server side) that drops those emails off the end of the earth when the conference is over.