Candidate Ads, Coming Soon To An Inbox Near You

ooby writes "MSNBC reports that Bush and Kerry plan to shoot off a million or so emails to their closest friends. By using the Internet to distribute ads, presidential candidates believe they can reach more people using less money. I guess that's why they wrote that loophole in that awesome new spam law."

Comments

first post

[Anonymous Coward]

FP!
NANANANANANA!

First we gonna ROCK

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we gonna ROLL
TEENS4CHRIST LETS IT GO

From the article...

[zegebbers]

"It's meant to mobilize supporters, raise money and create buzz."
Maybe, this would be better for buzz.

It must be my eyes...

[Anonymous Coward]

but I read the headline as "Candidate fags cuming to a brothel near you"

Re:if they spam me

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are the two humorless morons who rated that "Interesting"?

Re:And afterwards...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame me, either. I would have voted for Homer... but he went down the drain after his Iowa speech.

ENLARGE YOUR BUSH!

[t_allardyce]

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When it comes to a tight hole, VOTE BUSH!!!

Bush enlargement pills may enlarge your pubic hair region and not your vaginal opening. In case of overdose seek medical attention immeadiately, may cause laxative side-effects and should not be taken by presidential candidates

This message contains a political message and thus is immune from anti-spam legislation.

Who cares, the election 'll be rigged

[ThinWhiteDuke]

C'mon, after all these posts about Diebold et al. I can't believe that so many people apparently still think that their vote will be counted.

Let's recall the facts:

1. 20% of American voters will use electronic voting.

2. These voting systems leave no paper trail.

3. The systems used are provided by private companies. Both hardware and software are closed source.

4. The top management of these companies have made public statements in favor of the Republican Party.

5. These systems are grossly insecure.

6. Most politicians are willing to try the nastiest tricks if it can serve them, they can do it and they believe it will not backfire.

Now, we are on slashdot. The population here is supposed to think rationally (I know, I'm not new here, notice the "supposed"). Let's use logic and see what we can derive from these 6 facts :

A. Should anyone have doubts with the election results, no double check is possible, thus no possibility to substantiate the doubts (from 2.)

B. Should any rigging happen, only some people with the manufacturers can prove it (from 3.)

C. Should anyone have doubts with the election results, they will not be able to get a court to order a meaningful inquiry (from A. and B.)

D. Tampering with electronic voting systems will ensure a win in all but the most disproportionate races (from 1.)

E. Rigging the elections results is technically easy (from 5.)

F. Should any cheating happen, the people able to prove it will be reluctant to reveal it (from B. and 3.)

G. Politicians of all parties WILL cheat if they trust the manufacturers' management to keep quiet (from D. E. F. and 6.)

H. Republicans WILL cheat the election (from G. and 4.)

I. Republicans will win in all but the most disproportionate races (from H. and D.)

All of this may sound alarmist but it's not. Most people, even those who show outrage at the whole electronic voting issue don't really want to believe that such a scenario is possible, let alone likely. But if you think about it, this will happen unless (ALL senior republicans are honest) OR (ALL of the manufacturers' management are honest). To reverse the assertion, this will happen if (Ashcroft OR Cheney OR Rumsfeld OR ... is dishonest) AND (any Diebold exec OR any exec at any other major manufacturer is dishonest).

We're living dark times for democracy in the US. The constitution states that power belongs to the people and has instituted checks and balances to prevent any small group from wielding too much power. Now the power belongs to a handful (litterally) of people with a strong vested interest in using it.

And before you talk about the second amendment, remember that nobody will know that a coup happened. Who makes a revolution because elections might have been stolen? Nobody did in 2000 (I don't claim that the 2000 election was stolen, I just say that many people thought it might have been stolen)

And notice that everything comes from fact 2. Not giving a means for the people to check that the election follows the rules is the mistake most (other) democracies did not make.

Re:Who cares, the election 'll be rigged

[BCW2]

You might want to include ALL the facts.
1. Big labor always votes Democrat.
2. Big labor is owned by the Mafia.
3. Chicago is the best example, rigged
elections for over a hundred years.

If I were an idiot and I were a member of congress, but I repeat myself - Mark Twain

Re:Who cares, the election 'll be rigged

[dethlejd]

Why do you infer that it is only possible that the REPUBLICANS would rig an election?

Are you implying that they are less ethical and more intelligent, and that they are the only party with the technical capacity and motivation to do so? Where do you come up with these facts that on which you base these gross inferences?

Last time I checked, these were the facts that I know:

1. Color me cynical, but all people are garbage.
2. All politicians are people.
3. Ergo, all politicians are garbage.

Or are you implying that Republicans would be the only party that would need to rig an election?

The last time I listened to the pundits, the common thought was that the reason that Kerry is gaining so much support in the caucuses was because he is perceived to be the only candidate that can truly compete with GWB.

If GWB is such a lackluster, painful, and heinous President and is so universally reviled, even that block of wood, Al Gore, should be able to beat him. Oh, wait.

All this implies a certain sense of inferiority for ALL of the Democrat candidates, and if that's the perception, wouldn't it be safe to admit that they would have just as much motivation to "cheat"?

- Jim

Re:The cost of spam... (AHEM)

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't anyone read their utility bills? I was off in my thinking (thats what I get for posting messages late at night). I use about 700 kW*h per month... Well, maybe Bush will send me a campaign message. Then I can complain to his ISP that he is wasting THEIR bandwidth. Of course, given people's general gulliability, and the poor computer security of politicians, how many of these 'campaign' mails will have viruses attached to them? Maybe the Republicans should write a clever Spyware utility that looks like a virus, send it to everyone in the Democrat National Party as a campaign message, and we can have a 'SPAMgate' controversy. I can already see Bush's speech: "My feller Amerikans..." -- SHAZBOT!