1948: "Campaign Fundraising Emails"

[squall_line]

Alt-text: "The establishment doesn't take us seriously. You know who else they didn't take seriously? Hitler. I'll be like him, but a GOOD guy instead of..."

My favorite has to be "Who 'lost the election last week'". It happens around here often with local candidates who don't give up even after losing an election by dozens of points.

[sotanaht]

I'd vote for the "I will lead the fight" guy.

[pkcommando]

Only a quitter stops when the election is over. Are you a quitter? Besides, you can never start campaigning too early for the next election. So what if you're out of money, lost by such an embarrassing amount that pundits will have jokes for years and rules governing candidacy will be rewritten, your concession speech was a drunken hodgepodge of conspiracy theories, you weren't even technically eligible to have run in the first place, you don't. ever. quit.


It's like Doctor Who - once they announce the next person, before that actor has even started filming any scenes, we're now free to relax and start speculating on a successor.

[cellocgw]

... feeling sad that my campaign slogan wasn't in his list...

It's in my .sig -- that thing nobody every looks at

[pkcommando]

... feeling sad that my campaign slogan wasn't in his list...

It's in my .sig -- that thing nobody every looks at

Yeah, but if "Earth weighs almost exactly π milliJupiters" didn't work for Gerald Ford, then it's probably for the best if we just forget about it.

[J%r]

I had to read a bit more closely as usual, as my mind usually blocks anything that looks like an advert.

[DavidSh]

Pleasantly surprised to see the Tolkien quote there. I don't see how it would work as a request for money, though.

[Plasma_Wolf]

Are you familiar with the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch? His work illustrates my opponent's plan for...

I really wonder what kind of a person this opponent is, that this sort of thing illustrates his plans accurately:

[Nuvector]

Pleasantly surprised to see the Tolkien quote there. I don't see how it would work as a request for money, though.

"Like rain on the mountain..."
If only more politicians were cognizant of the ephemeral nature of campaign funding.

[Pfhorrest]

I really wonder what kind of a person this opponent is, that this sort of thing illustrates his plans accurately:

IIRC, that triptych illustrates the fall of man from the innocence of Earth's original paradise through the sin of the mortal world today and the dire consequences that that sin will bring in the future. So, the email is saying that that opponent is going to bring about the collapse of human civilization.

[Old Bruce]

Come on people, what are we doing? This was Godwined in the alt-text. [head-scratching emoticon],[winkey-face emoticon]

[niauropsaka]

At first I just read the bolded text, down the column, reading the final row as I thought it was the punchline. "Meh," I thought. Campaign fundraising emails, like the kind I've seen many times, eventually turning into a Nigerian email scam, or a parody of one.

BUT THEN I WENT BACK AND READ EVERY LINE. This is really funny! Randall Munroe is an amazing humorist.

But, you know, he's also a scientist by training. And that university education informs and strengthens his work on XKCD.

Our culture is stronger when we have more scientists, and more humor writers, and even scientists who write humor. And universities are where we get all of them. Not just any universities, either: Affordable, publicly funded universities.

That's one of my political priorities as I run for Congress. I will always vote to keep university subsidies high enough to keep tuition low and scholarships available, to educate the next Randall Munroe without leaving him or her in crushing debt.

I don't need you to donate, but I do need you to vote. Vote for me, and for other candidates who share this vision. Because a world without XKCD would be less funny, less informed, less able to cope, and a lot sadder.

But if you do want to donate, click on this button and pay what you can.

[PAYPAL BUTTON REDACTED]

Nia Psaka, candidate for Congress.

[niauropsaka]

I'd vote for the "I will lead the fight" guy.

That was some Dubya Bush style of rhetoric.

Come on people, what are we doing? This was Godwined in the alt-text. [head-scratching emoticon],[winkey-face emoticon]

My response to the title-text was, "Too soon." Ahem.

[rmsgrey]

I'd vote for the "I will lead the fight" guy.

I favour that nice dark-skinned chap myself.

[drachefly]

At first I just read the bolded text...

applause.

[Soupspoon]

[✓] That pilot. I'm with her!

(If under STV, put down the single mom as my next choice. And the heiress, herself, third.)

[Mikeski]

I really wonder what kind of a person this opponent is, that this sort of thing illustrates his plans accurately:

Libertarian (current pot-legalization-only incarnation)... maybe the Green Party if you're dyslexic...

Come on people, what are we doing? This was Godwined in the alt-text.

I'm pretty sure comparing yourself to Good Hitler is not covered by Godwin's Law. That's sort of a double-reverse-Godwinning.

(Hm, now that I check, Godwin just said "the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1"; it doesn't require you compare someone else to Hitler. So just a Reverse Godwin for contrasting oneself against him.)

[Fungo4]

The question I have for you all is, did you read them top to bottom, or in chronological order?

[Pfhorrest]

I assumed top to bottom was chronological order, because what kind of monster would sort any other way.

[sfmans]

I really wonder what kind of a person this opponent is, that this sort of thing illustrates his plans accurately:

IIRC, that triptych illustrates the fall of man from the innocence of Earth's original paradise through the sin of the mortal world today and the dire consequences that that sin will bring in the future. So, the email is saying that that opponent is going to bring about the collapse of human civilization.

Yeah, but it’s got some really cool musical instruments in it, so it’s not all bad

[aerion111]

I assumed top to bottom was chronological order, because what kind of monster would sort any other way.

My kind of monster.
See, I READ top-to-bottom, which means it's best if the important info is at the top.
And new mail is more important than old mail, especially if the new mail is unread and the old mail is read.
I want descending date (newest first/top) when looking for mostly-independent new instances (sometimes mails are related, and then I usually confuse myself by responding to the newest first, but it's usually not a big problem)
I want ascending date (so, normal chronological order, oldest first/top and then progressing forward/down) when I'm going through a 'record' or other sequence of related content.
Like a forum thread; I do agree it'd be madness to not sort chronologically there. You'd end up having to read each post top-down (with rather few exceptions; Even when languages are written vertically, it's still usually top-down), but then go between posts bottom-up to follow the sequence.

[speising]

You'd end up having to read each post top-down (with rather few exceptions; Even when languages are written vertically, it's still usually top-down), but then go between posts bottom-up to follow the sequence.

you mean, like in email threads, as it has become the custom in "recent" years to add your reply on top?

[chrisjwmartin]

The question I have for you all is, did you read them top to bottom, or in chronological order?

I instinctively started reading bottom-to-top, but realised they were getting less ridiculous instead of more, so started again from the top as seemed to be intended.

[DanD]

Only a quitter stops when the election is over. Are you a quitter? .

In a lot of cases, campaigns actually end up in debt. And it's easier to say "we'll continue to fight" than to say "Welp, we lost, help us pay for it anyway".

[Soupspoon]

you mean, like in email threads, as it has become the custom in "recent" years to add your reply on top?

You do well to quote "recent" (or type ""recent""?) as I blame Outlook Express. And the Eternal September. And WebTV. And… Anyway, now more than two decades ago.

That's despite it being infinitely more logical that:

Someone writes:
> With a question?
You answer it.

> And if they have a further question?
You can answer that too, inter-bottom-posting.

And then you can see if the quote pyramid(s) get(^s) far too large and trim. Especially useful for when one forwards a long correspondence to a third party and forget that somewhere near the beginning (or bottom-posting end) of the correspondence the initial conversation involved awkward or insulting comments about Third Party, which they now get to read because you're encouraged to be lazy in your trimming!

/old fogey signing out.

[Pfhorrest]

Me too.

[SuicideJunkie]

Like a forum thread; I do agree it'd be madness to not sort chronologically there. You'd end up having to read each post top-down (with rather few exceptions; Even when languages are written vertically, it's still usually top-down), but then go between posts bottom-up to follow the sequence.

Years ago now, on the SE4 forums, a number of us regulars used the toggle to put most recent posts first in the threads.
Between the size of the community, and the frequency of checking, only the last two or three posts would be new, and the context would still be in wet memory so it was handy to have them appear above the fold on page load.
For a while it was a challenge with a few successes to get a full answer to somebody's question with an identical timestamp to the question post (1 minute resolution)

[JohnTheWysard]

Dammit, Randall, are you hacking my email inbox again?

[RogueCynic]

Am I the only person who noticed the only emals marked as read were from female candidates?

[moody7277]

Are you familiar with the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch? His work illustrates my opponent's plan for...

I really wonder what kind of a person this opponent is, that this sort of thing illustrates his plans accurately:

The attack ad would be more effective if they were comparing their opponent to Gustave Dore's works.

[Mutex]

Am I the only person who noticed the only emals marked as read were from female candidates?

If you're thinking the ones without the bolded text have been read, I'm not sure I think that just means they don't have a subject title?

[Soupspoon]

Am I the only person who noticed the only emals marked as read were from female candidates?

If you're thinking the ones without the bolded text have been read, I'm not sure I think that just means they don't have a subject title?

I'm not familiar with how that (composite/inspired-by?) mail-client interface works. There seems no obvious consistency between what is head-formatted in bold and what isn't. It can't be "Bold the title, then run on with the starting text in nonbold" without subjects like "Are you familiar" (..."with the Dutch painter (…)" as message body), and I may have been hiding under a rock, but I've never seen that. Maybe "Subject: Are you familiar with..." and Body "...the Dutch painter (…)", but even that presumes a common email standard that the message summary runs things on most of the time, and I'd take the subject all the way over to the question mark after "Bosch", to work with any sensible presentation.

Not that I wouldn't put it past some "new standard" popularising this weird format (perhaps some syntactical interpreter that extracted none or some of the initial Subject+Body to be highlighted, or always but downgrade read messages by nobolding the whole thing. But things have obviously been much corrupted since the likes of RFC 2822 (8-bit character data, necessary MIME-extending to shove XHTML/embedded-imagry, totally ignoring the 78-character advisory and 998-character mandatory line-limits, etc) and I don't consider myself proficient in writing a decent mail-handler, any more…

[Eternal Density]

I read it top to bottom, which seemed to be the logical way.
But I can't find anything significant about the bolded text whichever way I read it.

Somebody please donate to our campaign!
Once you give, our real campaign can begin
Told not to support our campaign? Ignore!
Me: the person you want in charge of everything!
The world was gonna be ours, but we ran out of money, please send more
Roll me into an early grave, why don't you? That's what you're doing by not supporting my run at office.
I'm not the smartest tool in the shed.

[Mutex]

Am I the only person who noticed the only emals marked as read were from female candidates?

If you're thinking the ones without the bolded text have been read, I'm not sure I think that just means they don't have a subject title?

I'm not familiar with how that (composite/inspired-by?) mail-client interface works. There seems no obvious consistency between what is head-formatted in bold and what isn't. It can't be "Bold the title, then run on with the starting text in nonbold" without subjects like "Are you familiar" (..."with the Dutch painter (…)" as message body), and I may have been hiding under a rock, but I've never seen that. Maybe "Subject: Are you familiar with..." and Body "...the Dutch painter (…)", but even that presumes a common email standard that the message summary runs things on most of the time, and I'd take the subject all the way over to the question mark after "Bosch", to work with any sensible presentation.

Not that I wouldn't put it past some "new standard" popularising this weird format (perhaps some syntactical interpreter that extracted none or some of the initial Subject+Body to be highlighted, or always but downgrade read messages by nobolding the whole thing. But things have obviously been much corrupted since the likes of RFC 2822 (8-bit character data, necessary MIME-extending to shove XHTML/embedded-imagry, totally ignoring the 78-character advisory and 998-character mandatory line-limits, etc) and I don't consider myself proficient in writing a decent mail-handler, any more…

The only possibility that makes sense to me is the bold text is the subject, and the rest is the start of the email body. Which means some don't have subject titles, which would be very odd for a campaign fundraising email. But, rule of funny.

[Mikeski]

The only possibility that makes sense to me is the bold text is the subject, and the rest is the start of the email body. Which means some don't have subject titles, which would be very odd for a campaign fundraising email. But, rule of funny.

That requires both technical and literary competence from the sort of people who do political fundraising... assumes facts not in evidence.

"Who puts a title on a letter? Isn't this like a letter? We aren't sending a fund-raising memo!"