As I suspect most people are right now, I’m deluged with requests to donate to political candidates and campaigns. I never do; I don’t think politics is the most effective way to fight for change. But I do sign a lot of petitions online, and organizations get my name and e-mail address from those and add me to their prospective donor lists.

The usual schtick is “We only have 48 hours to the FEC deadline, and if we don’t raise $X by then, we’ve lost the election, and this means [x party] will have a majority, and that means [x, y, z laws that probably matter to you, based on our demographics and the online petitions you’ve signed] will all be overturned!” Hysteria. Not always entirely unfounded, but still. And although I’ve never bothered to check, it seems like FEC filing deadlines happen absurdly often–weekly? biweekly?

Most of the time these e-mails are just annoying. It’s a pain to log onto my Yahoo account every day (gmail’s better with the filters they’ve put in place) and immediately have to delete 15 or 20 messages. I do open them sometimes–I’m not always sure whether an e-mail is going to ask me for money or to take some other action that I might be willing to take. And sometimes the subject lines are, for one reason or another, compelling enough that I want to see what the message says.

And sometimes they just cross a line. This one, delivered today, manages to be offensive, invasive, and condescending.

Subject line: Monique, I know this doesn’t mean you don’t care:

Message:
We’ve got our biggest fundraising deadline of the year at midnight tonight.

It looks like you haven’t chipped in yet.

Monique, I know that doesn’t mean you don’t care about fighting for change — we can’t all make a donation every time a fundraising deadline rolls around.

What makes this all work is that supporters like you chip in what you can, when you can. When we each do our part to help, it adds up.

I’ve worked in marketing. Marketing people can be pushy, and I think there’s sometimes such competition internally to come up with a “compelling” campaign that those involved forget they’re targeting actual human beings. You know, people who might not be stupid, who might be educated, who can think for themselves, who resent being treated in a condescending and/or guilt-inducing way. Maybe this message is very effective in triggering contributions; I don’t know. What I do know is that this organization will be getting a response informing them that while I agree with their goals and positions, they can just go right ahead and take me off their mailing list. Even if I change my view on political donations, I’m never going to send money to people who address me like I’m an idiot.