Currently, I work in a marketing department. It's the first time I've done so and, as a result, I am learning a lot about email marketing. One of the first things my boss taught me was that inundating your audience with email, especially when you are asking for something -- money in our case -- is not the way to go. We try not to send anyone email more than twice a month. In the last seven days I have received four from the Kerry campaign.

Obviously, this is terribly annoying. Unfortunately, it's only the tip of the iceberg. A week ago I got a letter from the campaign that was written in ALL CAPS. It was demanding I urgently send in a donation as the campaign is in dire need of money to combat Bush. I found it offensive. Why is John Kerry acting like a spammer? I want to support his campaign, both monetarily and with a vote, but when it's hard to differentiate his mail with ones about credit card debt I have troule paying attention. It's like the boy that cries wolf or a blog about hard drive-based MP3 players -- eventually you stop listening.

If the campaign, or anyone for that matter, has something important and worthwhile to tell me, I'm happy to listen, but Kerry has taken it too far. Seriously John, you don't have to remind me to donate everytime you start a new commercial on tv. I propose you follow the lead of a software mailing list. Allow those who want to know about big news to sign up for one list and allow those who want to watch every move as it happens to sign up for the development list. It should be that easy.

I'll end this post by regretfully telling you that I've unsubscribed from your email list. It's out of control. You'll still be getting my vote in the fall but our near-daily email communication will have to stop. I'm sorry.