The Democratic Party is pissing me off - email rant

[csziggy]

I've been getting fundraising appeals from all kinds of Democratic candidates all over the country. I have never even heard of most of these people. I figure the only place they could have gotten my email is from the Democratic Party.

I have limited funds to donate to candidates and use it to support those in my area. While I understand the need for support for Democrats across the country, I live in a state that waivers back and forth between Republican and Democratic so I will spend my money where it will affect my state the most.

I have told this to the DSCC, DCCC, and every other national Democratic organization that has called me and I never gave them permission to share my email all over the country.

And the damned Unsubscribe link does not seem to work for most of these candidates, so I can't even get OFF their fucking email lists.

This is pissing me off so much today I called a campaign in South Florida and went off on the poor campaign worker. The campaign is for Annette Taddeo now running for a local office. She previously ran with Charlie Crist, who I did not like or support (though I did vote for him since he was the most viable option). Why the hell would I give money to someone who lives hundreds of miles away, who supported a DINO, and who has done nothing but spam me for the last three months with appeals for money?

I just got another email, this time from someone from New Mexico. Florida needs my help more than New Mexico, for fuck's sake!

[bettyellen]

1. Mark them as spam. Solved.

[csziggy]

3. I hate to do that to a Democratic candidate but am seriously considering it

I am not sure if marking email as spam still adds them to blacklists. If it does, I would hate to wholesale add Democrats to those lists that are used to block mass quantities of emails.

I'm pretty sure many of the candidates are good people, but their email practices suck. Aside from sending emails to people all over the country that may not welcome appeals from far places, and from having non-functional unsubscribe links, they often simply list their name or the name of a campaign worker in the subject line. Much of the time I DO mark emails from unknown persons as spam without ever opening the email.

It's when the same names kept showing up over and over and over and over that I finally used the Properties to look at some of the emails and discovered that most of the unknown name emails were from Democratic campaigns. But that takes time and these days my energy levels are too low to waste my time on their stupidity. Still, I was doing that, then opening the safe emails to use their unsubscribe links to get off their lists - but those are NOT working.

Maybe tomorrow I will call one of the local candidates I have supported and ask them to send my complaint up the chain. Because if this continues to increase at the rate it has over the last few months, I will STOP ALL communication with the Democratic Party completely.

[bettyellen]

7. No it's just like personally blacklisting them.... if you ever want to look,

They go to that folder, just not your inbox. I've had trouble unsubscribing from some commercial spam, and it's just easier to mark them as junk at this point.

[csziggy]

8. It's been a lot of years since I looked at how spam filters worked

Maybe a decade or two. It used to be that if you added an email to your junk filter, it was also added to the ISP email service filter. If a domain got above a certain level, that domain could be blacklisted and ALL email from it was blocked for all users on the email service.

Thanks to a suggestion down thread I discovered that I can block either an individual's email or a domain's email. I'll try that for a while.

Thanks to all on this thread!

[secondwind]

2. We are in the fight of our lives. This should be the

least of your worries. I get them also. Don't let this get to you. Take a deep breath, tear them up if it is mail, or mark as Spam if it is an email. Peace

[csziggy]

4. I understand the stakes - but spamming strong Democrats is NOT the way to win!

I've been tired since November 9. Now it turns out that part of that has a physical source that my doctor is still trying to diagnose fully. I have limited energy, time, and money for anything these days and the added burden of a dozen of extra emails every day is getting to be more than just a nuisance. It's taken months just to schedule the needed test to find out if I will need major surgery. That after the winter from hell with my husband's appendix bursting with major abdominal infection, followed by the death of his mother, has reduced my patience to thread bare - and I have never been a patient person to start with!

As I said in the message above, I hate to add Democratic candidates to spam filters in case that will put them on a wider blacklist. I'll try calling the campaign office for my Senator and discuss it with their campaign people. Maybe they can get word to the national Democratic Party to cut this the fuck out.

Oh - unwanted snail mail doesn't even make into the house. We have a PO Box and my husband sorts the mail at the Post Office, then throws junk mail into their recycling bins.

[silverweb]

5. Can you filter them?

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I don't know that all email programs have the same capability, but Gmail has filter settings so you can decide what to do with any email from any source - mark it important, archive it, trash it, and anything in between.

Like you, I get appeals for donations from many, many candidates I've never even heard of from all over. After the very first email, I immediately set up a filter that sends any future emails from that source directly to the trash and I never see them again.

Check out your email settings to see if you can filter yours.

[csziggy]

6. I don't know if Window Live Mail has that ability - good suggestion, though

I'll try to hunt around and see if I can.

[DURHAM D]

9. I am not getting any emails from candidates.

I have been donating to the party and candidates for 45 years. I used to give to the DCCC and DSCC on a regular basis but stopped about 15 years ago and started picking my own house and senate races.

One thing I don't do is pay online. I have done a lot of other stuff online and the DNC and a lot of campaigns have my email address but I always send a check by snail mail.

[JI7]

10. Why don't You delete them or get off their list ? these are mass emails that go to many people

It isn't personally sent to you alone. Nobody will be offended.

I almost always delete emails including from those i support.

[csziggy]

11. As I said, I have tried their Unsubscribe links

And those do not work.

Per a suggestion, I have found how to block both individual senders and domains. That will be my route from now on.

Most of my irritation is that I know that I never provided my email to many of these random Democratic candidates. They must be getting my email from Democratic Party sources. I gave a Republican elected official a hard time when his congressional office sold my email to right wing sources, I don't want the Democratic Party to sink to that level.

[crazycatlady]

12. Not sure what email service you use

But gmail has filters and 90% of fundraising emails are marked in the 'promotions' folder. There are a couple stragglers, but for the most part mine are all in promotions.

Just another FYI-- campaigns do email list swaps. This means that the Mickey Mouse campaign will give the Donald Duck campaign 1000 emails and the Donald Duck campaign gives Mickey Mouse 1000 emails in return. That is why you get on these mystery lists.

Calling the staffer won't help.

ETA another suggestion is to create a separate 'spam' email address and give it to campaigns, stores, websites and use it just use it for that (nothing personal). Check it (or not) at your leisure.

[csziggy]

13. I use Windows Live Email (in Windows 7)

I don't see anything about a promotions marking, but I did find out how to block individual senders and entire domains. Now I can block the Annette Taddeo campaign domain and every email coming out of that location.

While I do have a spam email, the Democratic database has my most often used email, as did the Obama and Clinton campaigns. Unfortunately the way Windows Live Email works, it makes it hard to separate specific email accounts to check the Unread emails.

Maybe if I stop responding to ALL Democratic campaign emails they will eventually give up on me. I am about ready to do that.

[silverweb]

14. It sounds like you found your filter settings!

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Way to go!