If you're anything like me, then you have at least 2 completely different e-mail addresses: One that you keep private and share only with close family and friends, and a separate address or addresses that you use for on-line forms or the like that ask for an e-mail address. You also use this address(es) when responding to on-line petitions, political or otherwise.
Responding to such a petition has the unfortunate side effect of getting your e-mail address on a list (or lists). This list can get passed around to various other political, religious, business, or social organizations, who will then send you e-mail after e-mail after e-mail. Of course, sometimes you ask to be put on a certain mailing list, but most of the time the many e-mails you receive are completely unsolicited.
Regardless of who or where these e-mails come from, however, almost all of them have one thing in common: They want money. So, after deleting about the 1000th fundraising e-mail from my Hotmail inbox, I decided to perform a little statistical exercise. Follow me below the fold for details.
For two weeks, starting with September 10th (there was no particular significance to this date--I just picked it because it was a Monday and therefore the start of the work week), I began to keep track, on a spreadsheet, of all the Political fundraising e-mails I received. I recorded each e-mail's date, its origin, and the amount of money requested. I decided that I would do this for two weeks, since I get paid bi-weekly.
It was a little trickier than I thought. Most e-mails requested a specific amount of money. Others asked me to click on a link that took me to a fundraising page. In those cases, the amount I assigned to them was whatever amount was either the lowest amount suggested, or the amount that automatically appeared as the "suggested" amount. And, in some cases, there was no specific amount requested at all. For those, I used the average of the amounts of all the other requests received, updated daily.
After reaching my self-imposed two-week deadline. I used various statistical functions to review the numbers. An aside: Say what you will about Microsoft, and I think most people can say plenty, but Excel is a wonderful tool for statistical analysis.
To say the results were a little surprising would be a gross understatement. I received a total of 92 different requests for contributions over a two-week period, an average of slightly more than 6 per day.
Of the 28 different individuals, political campaigns, PACS, or various other advocacy groups that sent them, the top five senders were, in no particular order:
President Obama (No surprise)
The DCCC (Ditto)
The DSCC
EMILY’s List (This one was a bit of a surprise)
Sherrod Brown (The first-term Senator from Ohio, for those unaware)
Now, don’t get me wrong. All of the people and organizations listed above are worthy of both my vote and my money. The President, certainly. And Sherrod Brown, particularly. Brown, a vulnerable first-term senator, is locked in a fierce battle against Karl Rove and his bunch who are pouring money into Ohio to defeat him.
But that is not the point of this diarist. My point is that, taken together, the total amount of money requested in all the e-mails over the two-week period in question was $1,040.50. That’s more than I earn in two weeks, never mind what I take home. The most important lesson I can take away from this statistical experiment is that if I were to give money to everyone who has been asking me for it, I’d be broke and homeless in a matter of weeks.
I realize that not everyone is in my boat. I’m sure that many people give generously when they get fundraising e-mails. And I’m equally sure that the individuals and organizations that send these e-mails have to recognize that there are many others like me that they are reaching out to who also have no possible way to give them what they are asking for.
So I’m asking these people to please forgive me for not being able to give every time I'm asked to. And I’m also asking them please to not be offended if I do a lot of unsubscribing after the election. I’m really looking forward to not having to clear out a clogged e-mail inbox every day.
And I’m asking anyone who reads this, and who has the resources, to take a few minutes and visit some of the worthy organizations who were part of my study, and to give them a few dollars if you can. I’ve included a list of most of them below. Most of them also include links to their fundraising pages. You'll have to search for the others.
(Note: If any of these organizations are misspelled or misrepresented, or if I have the wrong name or link for them, then I apologize.)
President Barack Obama
The DCCC
The DSCC
EMILY's List
Senator Sherrod Brown
ActBlue
The Ohio Democrat Party
Democracy For America
Tammy Baldwin
Progressive change Campaign Committee
CredoAction
Moveon
Russ Feingold (Progressives United)
Tammy Duckworth
21ST CENTURY DEMOCRATS
Sen. Barbara Boxer (PAC)
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Chris Murphy (CT)
Rep. Marcy Kaptur
NARAL Pro-Choice America
Progressive Change
Public Citizen
Rick Nolan (MN)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse