Hillary Clinton and the Lunch Lottery...

Two days ago I received an email from the Hillary Clinton for President campaign with the subject line of "Let's do lunch", my first reaction was "Wow", thinking for a second that someone from the Clinton campaign had noticed me or was coming somewhere near Toledo. Alas, that was not to be:

If you contribute by Friday, you might just have lunch with me at my home in Washington.

Then today, an email from Bill (yes, I realize these emails are from the campaign and not the actual persons), asking me "Mind if I drop in",:

Dear Lisa,

I hear you might be having lunch with Hillary -- do you mind if I drop in?

I've gotten similar emails from the John Edwards for President campaign, and one time I did respond, explaining that I understood the campaign fundraising portion, but it would be nice to get an email from time to time that was not just seeking money from me and briefly explaining how tough things are here in Toledo, Ohio right now. I never received a response back from the campaign beyond the automatic one...

So, I wrote back to "Bill", and in response I got the standard automatic email response:

The campaign has received thousands of emails from people all over the country. Your comments are important to us. Due to the high volume of questions we receive, it may take us time to answer you directly. To learn more about the campaign and Hillary’s views on the issues, please visit our website at www.hillaryclinton.com.

I think the lunch offer is a creative idea, and it could very well generate more money for Mrs. Clinton, yet one thing too many of these candidates don't seem to realize is, eventually people will open their email, see an email from your campaign and say, "OMG not another fund raising email" and stop reading the content.

As a part of their email mass marketing, they should remember, is it possible to turn off potential voters, and there should be more of a concentration on substance with perhaps, just perhaps, a bit more focus on substance rather than on fundraising...Unless of course they are concentrating as future owners of Publisher's Clearing House, several of these presidential campaigns have that potential...