Month: October 2020

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Enough Already, I get it!!!

This blog is not about politics, I promise. It does, however, deal with how candidates reach out to us and the messages they seem to want to convey. I am afraid that it has a bit of that cranky old man feel that I would really like to stay away from, but which keeps on sneaking up on me when I am not looking. I will try and avoid such whining as much as possible going forward, but for now, here goes.  

My guess is that I am not alone in waking up every day to an inbox that is full of pleas from a wide array of political candidates and organizations all of whom must have my donation NOW!!! The messages come from all over the country and beg me to please, please, please contribute something, anything, to their cause. My contribution is essential. Without it everything will come crashing down and bury us all.    

We have made some modest donations over the last few months to Democratic candidates, so the e-mails we receive are, not surprisingly, from Democratic organizations. I would be shocked if the other side of the aisle is any more creative. I have no doubt that Republican supporters get a similar array of messages, which convey the same type of requests and make the same type of arguments.  

By my count I received 77 e-mails over the last 24 hours seeking donations, though I am sure I undercounted. Among those 77 e-mails, 8 different Senate campaigns were represented. I was asked to take numerous surveys or polls, and told that my response was crucial to evaluating where the campaigns stand (a truly scary thought). I was told that one campaign must have $88,0832 immediately to compete, and another must have 6,581 donors to ensure their campaign had enough funds to win. I was told my “pledge” to vote for a Democrat was required, and that my response was “due in one hour”. I was told that polls have Dems winning and that polls have Dems losing. And this has been happening day after day for months. 

To be honest, I really don’t mind getting these e-mails. Yes, it is somewhat frustrating to open my e-mail folder and see well over 100 unopened messages. However, I think it would probably be more distressing to open the folder and see none, as if that’s ever going to happen. (No Natisuha Honey, I don’t remember chatting with you on a social network a few weeks ago, and I am not interested in getting together once COVID restrictions are lifted).  

My real question is whether anyone believes that this bombardment of e-mails is effective? There must be people out there who are getting paid gobs of money telling candidates that the best way to get people to donate is to send them e-mail after e-mail after e-mail. Of course, these are probably the same people who think I may want Hemp gummies, or to take a Mississippi River cruise. (Wait, what was that about Hemp gummies?)  

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are people out there who open every one of these e-mails and actually are persuaded to give $5.00 here and $10.00 there, to take each of the surveys and polls thinking that they are providing useful information, to fret endlessly that a campaign will only get 6,580 donors and not the 6,581 it needs to win. Maybe there are people who think that by responding to one of these e-mails they will stop the flow, not realizing that even responding to one will increase the volume exponentially. And maybe Mitch McConnell will be persuaded not to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat because I signed a MoveOn petition (and threw in $25.00 to boot). Yeah, just maybe.  

It’s like those charitable solicitations that include all kinds of free giveaways. I got one last week from Boy’s Town that included Christmas cards, a crossword puzzle book, personalized return address stickers and other miscellaneous stuff I really didn’t need.  Now Boy’s Town is a good organization (Gotta love Father Flanagan), but my immediate reaction is that if they can afford to send me all of this unsolicited junk, they really don’t need my money. What they thought was an enticement, was a disincentive (sorry about that boys).  

I also wonder about what the candidates are saying about themselves. So many of these e-mails are written as if the sender in a total panic. And this is a panic that has been going on for months. “This poll from Transylvania U (not the one in Kentucky) has us down a percentage point. All is lost without your $10.00!!!!!” “If we don’t get your $7.00 within the next 24 hours, our campaign might as well pack it in!!!!” Do they really think I am going to be persuaded to support a candidate who appears to be running around like a chicken with their head cut off? 

So, what is effective, at least for me? An e-mail or two a day from the Presidential campaign makes sense, just to remind me that I may want to consider a further donation. Plus, regular e-mails from the Pennsylvania candidates running is absolutely fine. Even an e-mail every few days from the Party generally, alerting me about other national races would be welcome. I might actually read those and they may spark me to donate to a campaign that I would not otherwise consider. 

But just be straight with me. I know the battleground states. I know that get out the vote efforts are crucial to success and that those efforts take a lot of volunteers and a lot of money. I know that the system is structured to require constant donations to keep going. I don’t need a fake, meaningless poll to pull me in. I don’t need apocalyptic pronouncements to try and scare me into giving. I know what’s at stake. 

Ok, I got that off my chest, though it’s not going to change anything. Even as I have been typing the flood has continued (e-mail from today below):

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ALERT from Washington Post: Pennsylvania emerges as ‘tipping-point’ battleground for Biden and Trump
THOMAS: Joe Biden’s home state of Pennsylvania is a must-win swing state where Joe and Kamala are LOSING critical ground to Donald Trump. New polls show it’s virtually tied!

But grassroots Democrats AREN’T DONATING to make sure we stop Trump in his tracks!
Rush $1 (becomes $2)
Kamala knows that everything from access to health care, to voting rights, and President Obama’s legacy are at stake in this election. But right now, Republicans are MASSIVELY outraising Democrats in battleground states with less than a month before Election Day. We simply don’t have the resources to take on Trump and the RNC.

If donations don’t pick up, Democrats will LOSE, THOMAS! We cannot afford to miss a single deadline between now and Election Day, but we’re still falling short of our $150,000 mid-month goal – our final one of this election. Our records show that you still haven’t donated to stop Trump and defeat Republican governors:
Email: tomwamser@comcast.net
Supporter ID: 8751682
Donated to have your gift matched: PENDING.
Rush $1 now to stop Trump and defeat his extremist allies!
THOMAS time is running out to make up for the ground we’ve already lost. This matching offer will only last until our mid-month deadline (at midnight tonight!) Every donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to our $150,000 goal!
Rush $1 (becomes $2)Rush $5 (becomes $10)Rush $25 (becomes $50)Rush another amount

No doubt this flood will last until election day. But I feel better. Now, about those Hemp gummies….          

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The Return of Tomser

Why write a Blog? Why would I think that anything I would put out there would have any interest to anyone at all, including me? How could I possibly fool myself into believing that I have anything to say that has not been said a million times before, and has been said so much better than I ever could? And why this idiotic, sophomoric reference to Tomser? What possibly could be going through my warped, little mind? So many questions, so few good answers. 

Well, whether the answers to these questions are good or not, there is a method to this madness. As most likely anyone who reads this will know (and I certainly hope someone will read it), I recently retired. It is, without a doubt, the biggest mental leap that I have taken since I got married. But in many ways that was an easier leap. I was quite comfortable that I was making the right decision then. I had a fairly good idea what I was getting into, had no doubts about my partner on that journey (yes, I am talking about you dear), and, though I could not foresee all the twists and turns, felt comfortable that I could take on the responsibilities that came with that decision. (I know, silly me).  

This is a different animal. While everyone tells me how great all of this free time is, it is a challenge. I feels like I have to reinvent myself. For the last 38 years I have had structure, and whether I liked it or not, I settled very neatly into that structure. In fact, one of the things that I learned quickly working from home in COVID times was that I needed a routine. I don’t do well with an open schedule, and yet that is exactly what I have. 

I know that there are some habits I don’t want to fall into. Retirement has to be something more than an opportunity to binge watch all the new Netflix movies (by the way, have you seen Kissing Booth 2 yet? It’s a can’t miss), or even all of the great films on the Criterion Channel (a daily dose of Kurosawa?). I have to fill my time in a somewhat meaningful way, or at least in a way that does not make me feel like a leach on society. But what do I want to do?   

Of course, being who I am the first thing I did was look for books to help guide me. There are a million books out there on financial planning for retirement, but few on what to do with your time. The best I could find carried the not too promising title of “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”. While it was often trite and simplistic, it did have a lot of good insights. And one of the best pieces of advice it offered was to find a creative outlet.  

That made sense to me, and it was reinforced by a friend who took up sculpture when he retired (check out the Evan Eisner Instagram page). However, my options are limited. I certainly can’t draw, unless you count stick figures. Anyone who has ever been subjected to my sousaphone playing knows that I have no musical talent (RIP Mr. Copenhaver). And if shop class taught me anything it taught me that I have no aptitude (or patience) for carpentry or anything of that sort. That leaves writing.  

Writing is a big reason why I became a lawyer. I always liked to write. I have always felt, sad as it may seem to non-lawyers, a real satisfaction in crafting a well-argued brief or piece of advice. I tried to make sure that it was not only legally sound, but was clearly and concisely written. I wanted not only to convey information, I wanted to convey it well. 

For all the satisfaction it gave me, I have no interest in doing legal writing now that I have retired, even if there was some legal writing to do. Let’s face it, no matter how you dress it up, legal writing is just not very interesting. The topics are generally dry as dust, and stylistically it leaves no room for humor or flights of fancy.  

To find a spark of the kind of writing I want to do, I had to go back to my college days, and the publication of The Motley Corner.  Hence, Return of Tomser, my nom de plume for that venerable underground tuba newspaper. (I know that’s French. Don’t worry, this blog will be in English). I would no doubt cringe to read now what I wrote then, but it was uninhibited and it was liberating. That is what I want to recapture. 

My plan to use this space to write about whatever comes into comes into my head as worth exploring. I read a lot, so my guess is that most of the ideas will come from there. However, I already have topics lined up on sports, movies, TV and other assorted subjects, so I will look for inspiration from all over. I will, for the most part, stay away from politics. Not that politics doesn’t interest me, but I really don’t think I have anything original to say about it. Plus, I want to keep my blood pressure under control.  

So there you have it. For better or worse I am off and running. We will see where this leads. I am optimistic that I can convey some ideas, spark some thought, and have some fun. But then again, I am optimistic about most things. Heaven knows why.