
Hillary and Bernie’s Quiet Email Battle - thepaulbooth
http://bizzy.io/blog/hillary-and-bernies-quiet-cyber-battle/
======
0x5f3759df-i
I don't think looking at their emails between winning and losing as if they
are equivalent is a fair comparison. Bernie won New Hampshire by 22%, Hillary
won Iowa by 0.2%. Delegates in the primaries are allotted proportionally so
winning by 22% gives you more delegates than winning by 0.2%(ignoring the
different quirks of comparing a primary to a caucus, and super-delegates).
Obviously any candidate would take a more triumphant tone after winning by 22%
than by 0.2%.

~~~
Someone1234
You forgot to say that Clinton has 394 delegates and he has 44. He has 11% of
her delegates even after he "won" NH by 22%.

Plus nobody is polling a Sanders win. He will lose in South Carolina by up to
30%, Florida by up to 40%, and just barely scrape by in Nevada (within margin
of error).

He will be out after Super Tuesday. He just doesn't have the right
demographics (people who actually go out and vote). Even if he is super
popular with all of the wrong demographics.

~~~
wolf_cook
I think it is a little misleading to claim that Clinton has the 394 super
delegates already. My understanding is that 1) super delegates can change
their mind whenever and 2) these super delegate counts tend to even out over
time if the race is close.

~~~
wcummings
It seems unlikely the super-delegates would decide the nominee, if they did,
they'd have a lot of disenfranchised voters on their hands and it'd hurt them
in the general.

The electoral college has rarely diverged from public opinion [1], even though
individual electors can and have voted "incorrectly". I can't find a similar
figure for the democratic nomination.

[1] [http://www.factcheck.org/2008/03/presidents-winning-
without-...](http://www.factcheck.org/2008/03/presidents-winning-without-
popular-vote/)

~~~
jharger
I think you mean disenchanted[1], not disenfranchised[2].

[1] [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/disenchanted](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/disenchanted) [2] [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/disenfranchise](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/disenfranchise)

~~~
leereeves
Both could apply.

Overruling the result of a popular vote with votes from party insiders would
be like denying people the right to vote by allowing the ritual of voting then
ignoring the votes.

------
avar
Isn't it interesting that despite a lot of Sander's voters being against the
outcome of Citizens United that his very presence as a viable candidate at
this point is in a way a demonstration of the point the Supreme Court made in
their majority opinion?

I.e. here we have a guy who's not taking donations from big corporations, but
is just as visible as Hillary who is. Money's speech apparently, and either
lots from a few big donors or small amounts from lots of small donors counts.

Regardless of what happens with this election I think what's happening so far
is indicative of a major change. If things keep going in this direction the
2024 election is going to be very interesting indeed.

~~~
guelo
Thousands and thousands of small donors to counterbalance 1 billionaire. That
doesn't seem like a one-man-one-vote style democracy.

Also, money is not speech, that's like some kind of 1984 doublespeak. Money is
access to popular mass communication channels. Access to popular mass
communication channels is not speech and is not addressed in the constitution.
Scalia's "originalism" was such a scam.

~~~
rayiner
"Money is speech" is doublespeak for sure, but it's doublespeak used by people
opposed to _Citizens United_ to make it seem like money is at issue rather
than speech. Those people want you to believe that a political movie about a
Presidential candidate stops being speech and becomes money just because of
where the money to make and air it came from.

~~~
guelo
The ruling in Citizen United was that they had the right to buy ads and pay to
have the movie televised. The law that the Supreme Court struck down banned
corporations and unions from _paying_ for candidate ads during the last 30
days of a campaign. The ruling found that 1) paying for TV time is equivalent
to free speech and 2) a corporation is equivalent to a person for the purpose
of the constitution's "We the People".

~~~
rayiner
Right. Opponents of _Citizens United_ would have us believe that banning the
act of people (acting through a corporation or otherwise) paying to have a
political movie aired is not suppression of speech. That's doublespeak--saying
that speech is actually money even though the expenditure of money is wholly
incidental to the act of political expression. By that reasoning the
government can ban spending money to publish a book, or buying a bus ticket to
attend a protest.

------
vonklaus
The Bait (A.K.A. The Subject Line)

Bizzy's Headline makes it sound like there is both a battle (a head to head
competition) and it is one taking place in a cyber context. However, it is
neither. It is candidates emailing their donors/supporters for more money and
can be fairly decoupled from one another.

The Point (A.K.A. The Body)

The body is actually some cherry picked lines from emails that are not
included in the post at all. There is no imagery or context so it is difficult
to draw conclusions, they draw these conclusions:

> Hillary’s latent message is that of a campaign in need of resuscitation.

> Hillary’s subject lines hint at impending doom for her campaign

> Bernie’s subject lines send a message of successful impact and building a
> future together

Conclusion

Without including the emails, the context of the emails, and the imagery in
the emails, and giving limited insight about the recipients, it is pretty
difficult to appraise a marketing campaign. This is a super biased appraisal
in favor of Bernie sanders. That's fine, he seems like a good guy. It does
point out imperative language and future tense present a stronger and more
compelling subject line, but other than that this is not how I would have
presented the arguments and information and it is not the most useful to the
reader. Context is very important and I would like to see screencaps of the
actual emails, and get a sense for the target audience. They did a good job of
explaining when the emails were sent (macro) but more granularly breaking down
the context on the per email basis would also have been helpful(micro)
especially by presenting the actual email.

Extras:

Bizzy.io didn't give any credit to Hillaries team for running their own mail
server or the overall transparency they have provided about Mrs. Clintons
emails. We don't know what Sanders is using, but the world has been well
informed about the clinton Email campaign.

not making a joke like this was a missed opportunity.

~~~
DonHopkins
Here here! I'd love to see a side-by-side comparison of each candidate's email
server ip address reputations.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
I understand that Sanders' personal emails are on the official government
servers, so there's not a lot he can do to affect those. And I expect they're
both using Mailchimp or another email marketing provider for the mass emails,
so again not a lot they can do. Perhaps we should use their campaign site
PageRank instead, as a measure of popular support?

Also, it's "hear, hear", though I can see how your form could be appropriate
for text instead of speech. Etymology:
[http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6690/hear-hear-
or...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6690/hear-hear-or-here-here)

------
bendykstra
I wouldn't read too much into the fundraising emails as they're designed to
attract donations from people already intending to vote for the candidate. The
race leader has an incentive to minimize their advantage or even pretend to be
on the defensive so that people will feel the need to donate.

------
jadengeller
I think this difference makes sense though. Bernie has to convince his
supporters that his campaign is picking up momentum, that he actually has a
chance so they should go out and vote. On the other hand, Hilary needs to make
her supporters worried enough about the competition that they won't just
assume it'll be an automatic win, and so they'll vote.

------
gopz
> Hillary and Bernie’s campaigns seem to disagree on what motivates Americans.

That statement seems a bit misguided to me. It's not that they "don't agree on
what motivates Americans", it's that they recognize the differences (political
and otherwise) between their candidates and play to those strengths. The
author then goes on to sort of imply that the Clinton campaign is either weak
or deceptive in playing some sort of defeatist card, but you could just as
easily say that the campaign is about "pluckiness" because Hilary assumes she
will be the nominee and is in it for the long haul.

------
gk1
It's very likely that the emails are being A/B tested, so as far as we know
we're only seeing 1 of N variations from Hillary compared to 1 of N variations
from Bernie.

------
spdy
I like the tone of Sanders campaign a lot more. We, together, help our
campaign, fight for a cause. Instead of I and Me based around a person.

After 2008 im surprised she still goes on the "me too" route and has no
visible agenda except for "if you vote for me i will win the 1st female
president award"

------
ChrisRus
Begging the question: [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-
questio...](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-
question.html)

Almost _never_ a valid reason to use this phrase. Using it incorrectly signals
(a) you're reaching (b) not so cunning a linguist after all.

HA. It's been patched to "raises the question". Good edit!

~~~
dragonwriter
The transitive form "Begs the question _X_ " is in common use and well
understood, and clearly distinct from (though it also serves as a
rationalization of) the intransitive form "begs the question"; complaining
about the former and insisting that only the latter is proper signals that you
are a pointlessly pedantic prescriptivist.

Slightly more detailed version:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10659342](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10659342)

~~~
pklausler
I'm all for letting language evolve and defining meanings of words and phrases
by the intent of their most common usage, but when an incorrect usage is
eliminating a useful concept with no ready replacement, the older sense
deserves the right to at least go down fighting.

"Begs the question" may be hopeless at this point, but I hold out an
unreasonable hope that "literally" might survive its struggle.

~~~
DonHopkins
And I hold out hope that "heretofore" will ensuingly not be considered a fluff
word. We can all dream.

~~~
dragonwriter
> And I hold out hope that "heretofore" herefromaft be considered a fluff
> word.

The comparable opposite of "heretofore" is "hereafter" (the "tofore" comes
from Old English for "before"). And its not a fluff word -- it has clear and
specific meaning -- though "previously" is more fashionable now.

~~~
DonHopkins
Sorry for ninja editing underneath you. I've usually heard "heretofore" used
in fluffy contexts, often hanging out with words like "insofar" and
"wherewithal", occasionally served with mutton chops.

------
SCAQTony
Hillary plays up being a victim in need of our help. ("...Hillary needs you
more than ever.) Definitely sympathy oriented.

Bernie comes across like a "general" prepping for a battle. Words like
"revolution and "campaign" are essentially "battle speak"

~~~
BookmarkSaver
They aren't trying to convince people to vote for them, they are trying to
convince people to give them money and actually go to the polls. Bernie is
winning at the moment, and Hillary has lost a lot of ground. They will be
playing up this situation to their respective supporters.

~~~
SCAQTony
That is interesting. I am presuming that the rhetoric regarding her $250,000
per hour speech fee may have potential donors wondering why they should send
money to a rich candidate.

------
ChuckMcM
I'm reminded of the old joke about Pravda covering a race between the USSR's
fastest car and the USA's fastest car. The results of the race were that the
American car won, and the Soviet car came in second, but Pravda reports it as
the Soviet car finishes second and the American car finishes next to last.

Political campaigns are always about creating a perception that the candidate
believes will get them the most votes. The tools for creating that perception
are speeches, direct email, and advertising. Sometimes they take direct action
but that seems rare.

But as to the issue that the Pravda joke speaks to, any set of facts can be
made to imply any desired perception with the right setup.

------
bgribble
The idea that ANYONE reads any of these emails is just laughable to me. They
are dunning emails sent to drum up support, and they basically get shitcanned
instantly even by supporters. They DO have some impact, mainly just keeping
the candidate's name at the front of the donor's mind and providing a "donate
now" link when they finally get weak and give again. But deep textual analysis
is just marketerbation.

~~~
gareim
I think I read roughly half the emails. Some of them contain news that I
wouldn't otherwise know to look for because the mainstream media don't (or are
late to) cover it.

