1948: Campaign Fundraising Emails - Revision history

Lettherebedarklight: /* Explanation */ link

2025-10-29T15:43:33Z

‎Explanation: link

162.218.182.4: /* Explanation */ Capitalization

2025-10-20T15:33:33Z

‎Explanation: Capitalization

Whoop whoop pull up: /* Transcript */

2025-03-29T01:13:04Z

‎Transcript

NinetyDegreeZ: Added to LOTR category due to LOTR reference in the second to last message.

2025-03-24T19:12:50Z

Added to LOTR category due to LOTR reference in the second to last message.

172.68.27.53: Replaced sweetspot with sweet spot

2025-03-24T03:05:21Z

Replaced sweetspot with sweet spot

Whoop whoop pull up: /* Explanation */

2024-10-05T02:31:17Z

‎Explanation

Whoop whoop pull up: /* Explanation */

2024-10-05T02:14:28Z

‎Explanation

GreatWyrmGold: Explained my logic a little better.

2024-05-18T21:34:21Z

Explained my logic a little better.

GreatWyrmGold: I can't figure out how to make an actual citation. Sorry about that! I'm sure there's a page that would explain how they work, but I can't find it.

2024-05-18T21:32:45Z

I can't figure out how to make an actual citation. Sorry about that! I'm sure there's a page that would explain how they work, but I can't find it.

172.70.178.191: ive always interpreted this particular joke as a reference to the eastern europe gaffe. not sure i quoted it correctly from memory so pls feel free to correct me.

2024-02-04T22:57:57Z

ive always interpreted this particular joke as a reference to the eastern europe gaffe. not sure i quoted it correctly from memory so pls feel free to correct me.

@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
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 |'''Outrageous.''' Granted, this was a few years ago, but did you hear what President Ford said about…
-|When a politician makes an offensive comment, it's common for the politician's opponents to send out fundraising emails pointing out the politician's offensiveness as a way of generating donations to the fight against them. Political strategists will often keep dossiers of such remarks to be used when needed in campaigning season. More recently, there has been a trend for trawling opponents' social media accounts for controversial comments they may have made several years previously, or even as a youth. Here, the sender's reaction and e-mail fundraising effort appears to be unusually delayed, as it refers to an alleged comment by {{w|Gerald Ford}} (potentially a reference to his infamous gaffe that there was "no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe"), whose term as President of the United States ended in 1977 and who died in 2006.
+|When a politician makes an offensive comment, it's common for the politician's opponents to send out fundraising emails pointing out the politician's offensiveness as a way of generating donations to the fight against them. Political strategists will often keep dossiers of such remarks to be used when needed in campaigning season. More recently, there has been a trend for trawling opponents' social media accounts for controversial comments they may have made several years previously, or even as a youth. Here, the sender's reaction and e-mail fundraising effort appears to be unusually delayed, as it refers to an alleged comment by {{w|Gerald Ford}} (potentially a reference to his infamous gaffe that there was [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfyL4uQVJLw "no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe"]), whose term as President of the United States ended in 1977 and who died in 2006.
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 |'''Whoops.''' Due to a typo, we spent months running attack ads against Tom Hanks. Now, we need to make up for…

@@ Line 82: / Line 82: @@
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 |'''Warmest greetings.''' I am the crown prince of Nigeria. I am running for Congress because I believe that…
-|The opening line is designed to sound like spam for an {{W | Advance-fee scam}}. These scams typically involve impersonating someone rich, often a Nigerian prince, who claims to be in trouble and promises to share a large sum of money if the victim helps him by sending a small fee in advance. However, the second sentence of this email switches to sounding like a political fundraising email instead of an outright scam. This is either to establish a degrading comparison between flagrant scams and fundraising emails, or just to create a bait-and-switch joke. Another possibility is that the email sounds like it is a scam because it is a scam.
+|The opening line is designed to sound like spam for an {{W | advance-fee scam}}. These scams typically involve impersonating someone rich, often a Nigerian prince, who claims to be in trouble and promises to share a large sum of money if the victim helps him by sending a small fee in advance. However, the second sentence of this email switches to sounding like a political fundraising email instead of an outright scam. This is either to establish a degrading comparison between flagrant scams and fundraising emails, or just to create a bait-and-switch joke. Another possibility is that the email sounds like it is a scam because it is a scam.
 Note that a Nigerian crown prince could probably not run for Congress without renouncing his title. Congressional candidates must be citizens of the United States, and gaining US citizenship requires one to "renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which [they] have heretofore been a subject or citizen".[https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8 (citation)] It is unclear how one could renounce allegiance to a state which they expect to rule.  The only way to avoid this requirement would be for the crown prince to be born in the United States (presumably while their parents were travelling in the country), thus potentially making them a natural-born citizen; even in this case, it might be open to question whether a child born to a foreign sovereign could be said to have been born under the jurisdiction of the United States (and thus to have gained United States citizenship at birth).
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@@ Line 99: / Line 99: @@
 :'''We're broke.''' <span style=color:#5c5c5c>No paid staff. No ads. And the cafe has told us to stop using their wifi to send fundraising…</span>
 :<span style=color:#5c5c5c>When Amy decided to run for Congress, I was like "Huh?" but I checked Wikipedia, and apparently it's a branch of…</span>
-:'''Are you familiar''' <span style=color:#5c5c5c>with the Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch? His work illustrates my opponent's plan for…</span>
+:'''Are you familiar''' <span style=color:#5c5c5c>with the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch? His work illustrates my opponent's plan for…</span>
 :<span style=color:#5c5c5c>Being a single mom running a small business while going to law school while being deployed to Iraq taught me…</span>
 :'''I will lead the fight''' <span style=color:#5c5c5c>against the big banks, special interests, the Earth's climate, and our children. I…</span>

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:12, 24 March 2025
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	[[Category:Comics featuring Adolf Hitler]]		[[Category:Comics featuring Adolf Hitler]]
	[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]		[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]
		+	[[Category:LOTR]]

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 |'''Donate $35.57 now!''' Our data team has determined that we should ask you for $35.57 to optimize the…
-|A key factor in the success of a fundraising campaign is the amount of the donation that is asked for or suggested. Even if the donor is ultimately free to donate whatever amount they want, the initial 'ask' can have a significant effect on the amount donated, due to the psychological effect of {{w|Anchoring (cognitive bias)|anchoring}}. Increasing the suggested amount may increase the amount of the average donation, but it may also put some people off donating altogether. Finding the sweetspot allows the fundraiser to maximize the income generated.
+|A key factor in the success of a fundraising campaign is the amount of the donation that is asked for or suggested. Even if the donor is ultimately free to donate whatever amount they want, the initial 'ask' can have a significant effect on the amount donated, due to the psychological effect of {{w|Anchoring (cognitive bias)|anchoring}}. Increasing the suggested amount may increase the amount of the average donation, but it may also put some people off donating altogether. Finding the sweet spot allows the fundraiser to maximize the income generated.
 Most modern bulk mailing platforms allow users send different versions of their emails to recipients at random. Using analytics packages, they can then determine which version of their messages is most effective at eliciting the desired result (such as making a purchase, reading a story, etc.) from recipients, or even from particular segments, and to refine future emails accordingly. Use of these techniques has resulted in fundraisers moving away from traditional 'round' numbers ($10, $25, etc.) to ask for more unusual looking amounts which increase the average amount donated, either by exploiting {{w|Psychological pricing|such effects}} as the "99 cent" phenomenon or giving those that ask an appearance of 'knowing what they're talking about' to give the potential donor the impression that they're good with details and wouldn't be overwhelmed by the pressures of being in office.

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 |'''Hopeless.''' It's bad. Really bad. If you don't chip in now, the darkness spreading across the land will…
-|This is a favorite of moral campaigns, on both sides of a debate. Grand statements about evil and corruption taking over the country if the campaign does not get enough support are common, but they are extremely biased and dramatic.  The wording in this case is also somewhat archaic and melodramatic, making it sound like something from a fantasy novel.
+|This is a favorite of moral campaigns, on both sides of a debate. Grand statements about evil and corruption taking over the country if the campaign does not get enough support are common, but they are (hopefully!) extremely biased and dramatic.  The wording in this case is also somewhat archaic and melodramatic, making it sound like something from a fantasy novel.
 This might also refer to [[1391: Darkness]], where everyone forgets about the day and night cycle, and reporters are reporting on the darkness that has spread as far west as Texas.
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