Political Fundraising Emails Are Getting Too Horny

“please, Jezebel.”

Some version of this email populates my inbox almost daily from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American history, like desperate notes from a jilted lover. The subject lines always sound thirsty and are usually in all lower case letters: “please understand, Jezebel;” “desperately;” “urgently;” “please read. don’t delete.” On Halloween, she sent me two: “I’ve had it,” followed sheepishly by, “my final ask.”

This is what it looks like now to even vaguely try to follow politics in the 21st century: an endless deluge of manic emails from powerful people that range from vaguely flirtatious to downright alarming. By the time Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost his bid to become Virginia’s next governor last week, he had managed to annoy all of his supporters, both inside and outside the state—and not with his gaffes or his personality. His campaign, frankly, sent too many fucking emails a day.

“I have received *46* emails today either from Terry McAuliffe’s campaign or about that campaign,” editor Jonathan Cohn vented on Twitter. Alex Shephard of the New Republic compared McAuliffe’s style of “dictating every email his campaign sends out” to that of hapless Simpsons character Gil Gunderson. And in response to a McAuliffe email with the subject line “are we sending too many emails?” (followed by “short answer: NOPE”), a Virginia-based reverend unleashed: “You’ve sent me 9–10 emails *every f-ing day* for the past week. So your answer to this question is galling. I’ve unsubscribed & I don’t ever want to see your campaign in my inbox again.”

Of course, I understand that political fundraising in the digital age relies heavily on email, and a certain amount of begging may be necessary. But it can be a bit unnerving when an influential public figure who represents or is running to represent you is up in your inbox multiple times a day sounding a bit like a cyberstalker, shooting off increasingly pleading and unhinged notes.

I, personally, tend to ignore campaign emails of any sort, mark them as read and move on. But they still manage to catch my eye every now and then—especially the vaguely horny ones: “I need you, Ashley.” Take me out to dinner first, at least. It feels, as times, as if these campaigns are skipping all pretenses and straight up inviting me to threesomes, which is the only conclusion I can draw from this email sent by then vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris: “You, me, and Barack Obama tomorrow.” Okay.

I tracked down one of the writers of these emails to ask whether this is really necessary, and whether they’re in on the joke. Amy, a political campaign veteran and Democratic National Committee alum whose name we’ve changed for privacy, told me, in a way, yes—that people doing digital fundraising for politicians are very Online and understand the implications of some of these moments (never forget Beto O’Rourke sensually slicing steak on main). But she insists that they don’t intend to make their emails risqué or sexually suggestive. “I think that the emails that you’re talking about are probably a combination of urgency and personalization, which is a kind of intimacy,” Amy said. “Those are the two things we want, and they just kind of like end up in a way that sounds weird. It has to pass a stress test. It can’t be overtly inappropriate, we’re not trying to do that.”

“We’re basically just trying to get as personal and urgent as possible,” Amy said. “And I think that as you consider that inbox environment… all of the progressive email fundraising programs are basically like upping the stakes with each other.”

In other words, everyone in this echo system has an eye on what other people are doing, and they’re constantly trying to get more eyeballs and clicks than their so-called competitors, even though they’re on the same side of the aisle. And the competition to pen the most attention grabbing subject lines has gotten a bit out of hand and lost the plot.

“I imagine that this started with like a ‘please comma first name’ situation, and that ups the ante to ‘PLEASE’—in all caps—‘first name.’ And then someone is like, ‘Oh, they did please in all caps! Let’s do ‘PLEASE, It’s urgent, first name,’” Amy explained. “It just keeps escalating.”

Amy told Jezebel that, over time, the teams who work on email lists go to great lengths to figure out what email subject lines optimize better. For some politicians, it’s a casual lowercase “we’re buddies” tone; for others, it’s an “urgent, scary, fear-based capitalization thing.”

With this comes one of the biggest debates in the political email industry: the ethics of how tricky or misleading you can be in exchange for engagement and donations. As a relatively harmless example, take a look at some emails Eric Swalwell’s team has sent to my work email address. All are sent from the same generic campaign email address, but each purports to represent a different slice of the Swalwell universe. As I see it, he uses “Team Swalwell” to represent his ride-or-die crew, “Swalwell for Congress” for his more serious campaigners, “Rep. Eric Swalwell” for the most official look, “eric (personal)” for that vaguely horny touch, “eric swalwell” in lowercase letters for yet more stage intimacy, and “Eric (iPhone)” for that on-the-go hustle and bustle feeling like you’re not trying too hard.

Now, I know damn well Rep. Eric Swalwell isn’t pounding out emails to me personally from his cell—his staffers are just attempting to manipulate my feelings and access my wallet from a regular ol’ laptop. “But that’s probably not the worst thing to mislead someone about,” Amy said. “Characterizing a political situation as potentially more urgent or more dire than it is is on the line. And then we have a lot of capital D discourse about tactics that absolutely crossed the line.”

One example would be subject lines that say “final notice,” which will immediately make your heart pound about having been evicted from your home until you see it’s sent by Team Random Democrat From Random State Whose List You Ended Up On Somehow.

But what about the suggestive nature of some emails? While Hillary Clinton emailing me “I want to meet you” doesn’t scream ethical quandary, I’m reading it as flirtatious! And the 2020 subject line from then-candidate Joe Biden that read, “Could I explain then give you a call?” sounds like a desperate text from someone who just got caught cheating on you. I gotta give it to the President of the United States and his team for genuinely making me feel, at times, like I’m dating the guy.

These politicians might not ever get a dime out of me, but going horny is at the very least an effective way to get my attention. The question is—can this really keep escalating? Where is the line? Is Amy Klobuchar going to invite me to couple’s therapy? Is “Jon Ossoff (iPhone)” going to start texting me “u up?” at 3 am?

I am merely asking that politicians—or, at least, their email teams—consider employing some personal boundaries before I end up with an email from some buzzy congressional up-and-comer with the subject line “YOU, ME, MY PLACE, TONIGHT, URGENT, PLEASE, ASHLEY .” There has to be a better way.