Joe Biden begs me to vote.

One of the weirder aspects of this gig is all the spam I get from Democrats. For those of you who aren’t in the Life, let me explain: it used to be that signing up for the Other Side’s mailing lists was a relatively easy way to see what agendas and events Democrats were pushing. Makes sense, right? By looking at what they tell their supporters, you get a feel for what the Democrats think is important. And that is often going to be different than what you thought the Democrats think is important.

Alas, like everything else involving the Democrats Barack Obama got his hands on it, and has made the entire exercise useless. Based on my inbox, the important message that Democrats have for their supporters these days is typically either We think Republicans are horrible: give us money or We have a contest. We have a contest. WE HAVE A CONTEST. Give us money.  And, indeed, the Democrats get money out of that.  The Democrats have also seen their polling numbers slide all summer, and while I have no proof that the two data points are related it certainly sounds like they should be, no?

All of this leads up to the fascinatingly different email that I got from the Democrats last night; needless to say, it’s got Joe Biden listed as the author.

Joe Biden wants me to let them know right now that I’m going to vote in the upcoming elections.  …Why, sure, Joe!  I’m ready to crawl over broken glass to vote a straight Republican ticket, and I live in Maryland!

Now, of course this is a form letter – but the interesting thing here is that the Democrats are tacitly admitting that their own base isn’t motivated to go to the polls in November.  It’s not that they’re saying, “Go out and vote.” Every campaign does that.  It’s that the Democrats are using this pitch to set up a separate database of its more committed followers, presumably so it can mega-spam them between now and November.  I can think of two reasons for this: one, the Democrats want to get yet more blood out of that particular stone.  Two, the Democrats are terrified that their most loyal voters aren’t really planning to show up, either.

Personally, I’d prefer it to be Two, but One isn’t so bad. It’s wicked to take advantage of the gullible, of course. But I’m not the one doing it; the Democrats are, and they’re doing it in a way that doesn’t actually hurt my party’s electoral chances. So, really, not my problem.

Moe Lane (crosspost)