In the last month, I’ve received letters from Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, and the ACLU. And I’m not sure why. I’m a conservative Republican (though I have been known to vote for the occasional Democrat or third-party candidate).
Two possibilities:
I briefly made monthly contributions to the Human Rights Campaign, the gay rights organization (I’m straight, but I oppose discrimination in any form), though I had to stop donating several months ago for personal financial reasons.
I became a member of a labor union last year.
Which seems a more likely source of these letters? I don’t recall authorizing either organization to sell my name and address.
Liberals are in favor of Big Government taking your hard-earned tax dollars and are thus kowtowing to the 3rd-class mail demands of the powerful and socialist US Postal Service.
I ended up getting emails thanking me for my support by a couple representatives I did not support and then campain stuff for them and other party canidates. I sent them emails on a issue, so that made me a campain supporter somehow and for the entire party no less. I had to send notices to take me off the list after the issue was voted on. Sending stuff to a representative on an issue can get you on the party mailing list.
I think the Human Rights Campaign would be the more likely.
Perhaps it’s different in the States, but the tradituional blue-collar unionised workforces in Canada went very right-wing over the past 25 years or so. This is why the riding (electorial district) where I grew up went from traditionally voting NDP (‘party battling to make government work for the working man’ in the 1950s when my grandfather ran for them) to voting Conservative (‘party battling against government for the little guy’). This is one of the creat unwritten cultural changes of the past fifty years.
What effect this has on the union organisations themselves, such as the Canadian Auto Workers, I’m not certain, but I don’t think the NDP gets the automatic monetary support from the unions any more either. matt_mcl, among others, would be able to clarify the details about the NDP.
Definitely complain if you did not authorise either organisation to sell your name and address. And if that does not work, tell 'em you vote Satanic.
Before one of the Houston mayoral elections, I received a card from Ma & Pa Bush. They wanted to be sure I voted for Orlando Sanchez–the Cuban-American Republican candidate.
The Houston mayoral office has traditionally been non-partisan & I wasn’t all that happy with the Democratic mayor at that time. But that card ensured my vote. For the Democrat.
It is indeed different in the US, Sunspace; unions traditionally vote strongly Democratic. I’ve heard figures ranging from 60 to 75% support from union members.
Probably the same reason that I get lots of stuff from the Republican party; your name is on a list by dint of your charitable donations (I’d bet on that one) or you meet some demographic…in my case I’m pretty sure it’s because I bought a home and there’s some chart out there showing “Homeowners in that area tend to be Republicans”. I also used to get lots of mail from the NRA (never had any dealings with them). To the NRA’s credit, when I called and asked them to take me off their list they were very pleasant and responsive.
Sometimes, it has to do with the demographic makeup of your neighborhood. The neighborhood I live in is populated mostly by upper-middle-class older folks, and so I get a ton of junk mail from the Republican party.
And then, of course, sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to it. My father-in-law got an autographed photo of George and Laura Bush last election season along with a letter thanking him for his contributions to the Republican party. My father-in-law isn’t even registered to vote and has never given a penny to any politician.
It’s the same reason you get catalogs from companies you never did business with. Mailing lists get bought and sold. American politics is all a bunch of marketing so of course they are going to try to mine mailing lists of people that support causes that support them.
It’s the same with charitable organizations. If you give to one cause they turn around and sell their mailing list and you start getting solicitations from lots of causes.
I get a lot of Catholic junk mail (very pretty!) and mail from Mitt Romney that says “Dear Republican voter–” though I have never been a Republican (or a Catholic). shrug
I work at a non-profit, and we trade lists with other non-profits of a similar type. It’s just a necessary feature that helps non-profits to exist. But if you call them and tell them not to mail to you, they’ll likely be appreciative because they don’t want to waste their money mailing to people who aren’t interested.
So I guess you should keep getting their mail just to stick it to them.
Huh. I don’t think it would be my local demographics. Washington is a “blue” state, but that’s mostly courtesy of Seattle; I live on the very conservative, very Republican East side of the state. And my roommate was a delegate to the Republican National Convention some years back
Parties do buy mailing lists, subscription lists, etc. They figure that they can micro-target voters based on your neighborhood, your personal preferences. The Human Rights Campaign think may have triggered it, but it could have been the union or even the magazines you subscribe to, the demographics of your street, who knows. I believe a lot of that stuff is still opt-out rather than opt-in, so you’ll have to tell them if you don’t want your name shared.
In the 2004 election the D’s were targeting Republican registered women in my county and in my borough. Not a bad bet since GOP registered women here at least were not enamored with the President. Of course, then they met Mrs. Slug. A lot of young idealistic phone bankers got an earful from her when they called up for the Kerry campaign.
So yesterday she got a mailer from the Clinton folks. Here we go again.
Mr. Neville got Republican campaign mail last year. I gave him a hard time about it, and threatened to make him sleep on the couch unless he swore he wasn’t a Republican
It’s far more detailed than the State level; down to the precinct or even lower level. So even though your part of the state, and even your city might vote Republican, your precinct or block or building might vote Democratic, so they mail to you.
It’s all a percentages game, like any mass marketing. They gather info about you personally plus generic info about your address, etc., merge all this* and try to calculate a likely-democratic-leaning score, and then mail to the higher scores.
Some details on you:
donated to HRC. About 80% of HRC donors are democrats. (Plus over 95% vote.)
joined a union. Depends on the specific union, but 40%-75% vote democratic.
have a roommate, live in an apartment building. About 60-65% democratic. (But offset by the fact that renters are only about half as likely to vote as owners.)
live in an urban area, rather than suburban or rural: that’s also 55-60% likely democratic.
Finally:
you vote regularly. Doesn’t mean anything for democrat vs. republican (unless your state has party registration), but does mean it’s highly likely you will vote next election. That makes you a highly valuable potential supporter, so they will mail to you before they will mail to known democrats who don’t vote or contribute as regularly.
So, just based on the above, you would be a ‘likely prospect’ for a liberal campaign manager, and well worth the cost of a mailing.
This merging process is in-exact. Based on names, etc. Mis-matches are possible, especially if you have a common name. That usually explains the "I never donated–why did I get a ‘Dear Republican Donor’ letter or the never voted at all, but got a picture and Thank-You from George W – somebody else with a similar name DID do that.
If you had a little spare change, it might be interesting to see if you could deliberately establish separate Republican and Democratic profiles.
Choose an “old family” sounding name for your Republican name: Arlington M. Crownover or somesuch, and a simple downhome name for the Democrat: Joe Henry Reed.
Joe should sent small cash contributions to the DNC and to the Democratic candidate for President. He should send one dollar each to several liberal organizations and charties such as human rights organizations, Amnesty International, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Council of Churches, the National Education Association, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Feminist Majority, the NAACP, Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and the National Black Women’s Health Project.
Arlington should send small cash contributions to the RNC and to the Republican candidate for President. He should also send one dollar each to several conservative organizations and charties such as some of the faith-based initiatives, Concerned Women For America, uh…y’all help me out here…
I would just caution against sending money to actual candidates or party committees. I know the money we are talking about is trivial, but I am reasonably sure that its illegal to provide false information on a donation form.
