Check out this creepy letter I got from the Republican National Committee

The BBQ Pit
1

Although I try and avoid revealing my political opinions on this board and IRL, I feel compelled to say that I am not now nor have I ever been affiliated with the Republican party. I have never once voted Republican and I have never given them one red dime in my entire life, so I was needless to say puzzled by getting this letter. Where in the hell did they get my name and address?

Then I started reading it, and boy is it creepy. It couldn’t have more damage to my opinion of the Republican Party if it were written as a joke by their worst enemy.

It has so weirded me out that I’m going to transcribe it here for you guys to read.

All formatting and punctuation you see within the quote tags are exactly as they appear in the letter.

::shudder:: I feel like I accidentally stumbled into the wrong room at a Hotel Convention and want to desperately find the door and slowly back out.

2

Whoa. I’ve written fundraising letters myself, and it’s not as easy at it looks, but I think I could have written a better opening blindfolded and drunk.

As for the rest of the letter, hard sell, yeah. Politically divisive, sure, though remember the RNC thinks it’s preaching to the choir here. But that opening…yikes.

3

When you wrote fundraising letters, Duke, did you write in all one-sentence paragraphs? I fucking hate that! Why the fuck do people do that?

4

Grassroots Leader:

I don’t get the weird part. This looks like standard boiler-plate party rhetoric which has not changed in decades. No doubt I will soon be receiving similar fundraising letters, though more probably from the Dems and People For The American Way, warning of the dread skulduggery of Ashcroft and his fundamentalist right-wing minions, which can be averted if I mail in that big check NOW.

I also get urgent invoices from political action committees to whom I have never, ever donated any money.
Standard stuff.

5

I’m no friend of the 'Pubbies, but I can’t say I see too much weirdness in this either.

Tedious? Yes.

Patronizing? Yes.

Weird for a fundraising letter? Not really.

6

Maybe your name just got accidentally put on the wrong list? ( . . . she asked charitably.)

7

Did y’all miss

Then the letter said

It is weird that they’re referring to his past generousity and leadership when he’s done neither.

8

What Homebrew said. Are they going to start calling me? Sending over Moose and Rocco to help my find my checkbook?

I also think it’s weird for stuff like this:

“Have you given up?” What? Screw you! Are they trying to needle me into donating? “I’ll show THEM who’s given up!” Gimme a break.

“I’m surprised and concerned” - :rolleyes: Why didn’t he just say “I’m a little disappointed in you.”

“Grassroots leaders like you” - Huh?

We cannot allow them to succeed! Why not? What if the Democrats’ policies are all pretty decent? Why the “win win win” attitude?

“Please don’t turn your back on president Bush” - So now I’m a coward…

“Please don’t quit now!” …and a quitter.

I think even if I were a Republican these tactics would put me off.

Although I don’t even read the letters I get from my Party - maybe they all say the same thing. I only opened this one b/c it was from the Republican National Committee, which raised an eyebrow right away.

9

Nope. As I indicated with that reference to getting invoices from PACs to which I’d never donated, it seems to be a tactic among some organizations to send fundraising appeals that suggest that one has given $$$ before, but unaccountably forgot to fulfill the pledge this time out.

Maybe one of Dooku’s yuk-yuk buddies sent his name in to the RNC as a likely patsy.

[Casablanca]“Shocked! SHOCKED! to find out that there is political demonization going on in here!!!”[/Casablanca]

10

I used to get stuff like this on my old email address (it got abandoned to spam over a year ago). I have no clue where they got my name, but the kept addressing the letters “Dear Republican” I think i started a Pit Thread about it.

11

It’s a media conspiracy, I tells ya. When I used to write at my last job, I tried to not make my letters look like a USA Today article. Sure, you can make one or two paragraphs in a letter one sentence long for emphasis, but not every damn one.

Why, this letter dispensed with one-sentence paragraphs and went straight for the jugular with a half-sentence paragraph:

I mean, WTF is up with that?

12

Is it possible to receive a letter from the RNC that isn’t creepy? :wink:

13

My grandmother died in the summer of 1983. Following the fall elections, she received a letter from the Republican party thanking her for once again voting a straight Republican ticket.
Considering her rabid support of the Republican party, I wasn’t at all sure she hadn’t come back from the dead just to vote.

14

Nah, this sounds like every fund-raising letter I’ve ever gotten. Allow me to share this collected sample I’ve devised:

Dear Your Name/Valued Member/Whatever,

You haven’t given us money in a long time and we really don’t like that. If we’ve displeased you, we’re sorry, but…

The forces of Evil, whoever they may be, are arrayed against us. We are the last defenders holding the bastion of Truth/Justice/The American Way/Free Punch and Pie against the Forces of Evil/Liberal/Conservatives/Gun Banners/Drug Runners who are fighting us at every turn.

Insert a few vague examples of possible threats.

Insert a few vague examples of solutions the organization has undertaken or, failing that, has just read about and thinks are really nifty.

Pleading/Whining/Whimpering of Please Give Us Money with a healthy dose of Or Else The Forces Of Evil/Etc. Above Will Win And Vague Dire Things (Your rights going away, puppies being killed, liberals/conservatives winning, punch and pie being denied) will happen.

Pseudo-signature from someone with an important sounding title like “Vice President of The Last Redoubt Of All That Is True And Good”

So how much should we put you down for? Include handy payment amounts.

Please give us your information here. We won’t ever sell it, unless it’ll make us money, or we think it’s really funny.

15

Looks like a typical fundraiser letter to me. Trying to figure out what’s “creepy” about it.

16

Huh. Creepy enough, but I thought this thread was going to be about this letter from the Michigan Republican Party.

Looooovely. 'Course, if you actually DID this, you probably wouldn’t have to worry about sending out holiday cards next year - you wouldn’t have too many friends left.

17

Yeah, it looks pretty standard to me too. I used to get crazy letters like that all the time from the ACLU (who I like and support). I hate the used car salesman tone they all seem to have.

“Dear Resident,
Can I speak with you as a friend? You need to send us money. If you don’t, evil will rule the earth. Only you can stop it. We take checks.”

18

Certainly the first thing I considered, but IRL I avoid political discussions with my friends. They wouldn’t score any points by doing this, since we never debate about anything political.

More detail: The whole letter is odd in appearance. It’s 7.5" x 15" on off-white but not bonded paper and came in a smaller envelope. Instead of placing the date in the upper right margin, it reads “Wednesday Morning.” <?>

And the whole thing is in Courier. That seems to be a conscious decision, since the part you detach and send to them has mostly TNR and a few lines in Arial. I guess they wanted me to think that Mr. Retzer typed this up himself.

Or rather: I guess they wanted me to think that Mr. Retzer typed this up himself. :slight_smile:

19

I wonder how much it costs them to process a check. If you sent them a check for one cent, would it be, effectively, a negative donation?

20

Maybe they were sending it to that well known Republican leader, Count Dooku.

He is a grass roots leader of the Forces of Darkness, after all :slight_smile: