Gupta Gupta Gupta! Its Gupta Time! Brought to you by.. The Clintons

[peoli]

Political campaigns spend thousands, even millions of dollars to acquire good mailing lists.

Last year, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton took the unusual step of renting out some of her lists. The transaction once again highlights the Clintons' connections to a businessman who now faces questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reports from Clinton's campaign show that on Dec. 3, it collected payment for renting out three mailing lists, the sale of which netted them $8,225.

It was an unusual transaction, according to Roger Craver, a liberal guru of the political direct-mail industry.

"As a general rule, a campaign will not let its donor list out into the markets until the campaign is over," he said. "This is the mother's milk of small-gift fundraising, and they use these lists frequently."

There are no records that any other presidential candidates rented out mailing lists last year.

Several sources who work in political consulting and in direct mail, who would not speak for attribution, said they were surprised by the deal, as well as its low price.

According to one direct-mail professional, $800,000 would have seemed like a more plausible price for a quality list. A political consultant suggested that the list broker's unidentified client could have rented the list as a sample one — to do a test-run mailing.

But most intriguing of all was the renter of the Clinton list: a list brokerage company that is a subsidiary of one of the data-collection industry titans, Info U.S.A.

Info U.S.A.'s CEO is Vinod Gupta, a close ally of both Clintons. Gupta's empire also includes the Opinion Research Corporation, which conducts the political polling for the television network CNN.

Vin Gupta has a long history of giving and raising campaign money for the Clintons, and gave $1 million for the 2000 Millennium Celebration, a New Year's Party thrown by the Clintons.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18958566

[cbayer]

1. Gupta heck outta here! This has been posted multiple times. Is this all you got? nt.

[kirby]

2. Exactly why I never donate...

"As a general rule, a campaign will not let its donor list out into the markets until the campaign is over," he said. "This is the mother's milk of small-gift fundraising, and they use these lists frequently."

Disgusting...And with no privacy policy or opt-opt capability there is no way around it.

[burythehatchet]

3. She'll be ready on day one to deal with things like this.

[dkf]

4. $8,225? Is that all Hillary supporters are worth?

Feels like a diss to me.

[FrenchieCat]

5. It depends which Donors they are......

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4473288

[dkf]

6. lol. dats funny.