It was only a tad bit deceptive, but deceptive all the same. About a half hour ago, I received some email from someone named Barack Obama. Now, while I don't personally know anyone by that name, I have heard of a Barack Obama. I've read two books by him and think highly of the guy.
So I opened the email. It turns out that it wasn't from Barack at all, but from a committee trying to raise funds to help the guy get a new job. It even bore a scanned replica of his actual signature.
Now political committees do this sort of thing. Thy do a lot worse. But the reason I happen to like this Obama guy so much is because he seems to set a new standard for transparency. He has built a personal brand that makes me expect more of him than of other candidates.
So I sent back an email politely saying how I felt. Sure enough, within seconds some robot server sent me back a quick note explaining that the campaign is overwhelmed by 20,000 emails a week and they wish they could reply more directly. This too was signed by Obama.
Now, it's early on in this campaign. Several candidates are looking better than average to me. But one of the places where I am going to watch as closely as I can, is in the area of how funds are raised and from whom they have been raised.
This is far from enough to stop me from voting for Obama. I am far from ready to declare my support so I am certainly not ready to send a donation. Ths emailing put me a small step further away from that point.
