{"id":3468,"date":"2005-02-02T10:01:09","date_gmt":"2005-02-02T15:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3468.html"},"modified":"2005-02-02T10:01:09","modified_gmt":"2005-02-02T15:01:09","slug":"exceeding-the-limits-of-self-parody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/exceeding-the-limits-of-self-parody\/","title":{"rendered":"Exceeding the limits of self-parody"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the outset, let me acknowledge that I wrote direct mail letters for nearly 10 years. I’ve written them for candidates at almost every level and for a non-profit organization. With this experience comes an appreciation that coming up with topics for these letters is not always easy.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, all available evidence suggests direct mail only works when the pieces include vitriolic and hyperbolic language. The letters need to get the reader’s attention, convey a sense of urgency about a serious threat to a given cause, and compel that reader to write a check.<\/p>\n

You’ll never see a direct mail letter asking for financial support so that the candidate\/group can “reach out those who disagree with us for an open discussion so that we can work together and negotiate in good faith.” Who feels compelled to send money in response to that? You will, however, see a direct mail letter telling you, in all caps and with bold letters, that your ideological rivals are planning to destroy your home, family, and everything you care about. Enmity sells.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, right-wing direct mail has used Bill Clinton as a boogeyman since 1992 and conservative donors have given up large chunks of their incomes in response. I suspect that the end of Clinton’s second term was bitter sweet for the right — they hated him, but hated to see their favorite cash-cow leave the scene.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, proving once again that the right’s penchant for self-parody knows no bounds, Jesse Helms has decided he’ll milk the Big Dog one last time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The former North Carolina senator, now retired in Raleigh, has resurrected a new bogeyman — former President Clinton — in a letter to raise money for his senatorial library, the Jesse Helms Center. <\/p>\n

Helms asks people to send from $20 to $2,000 to fight efforts to make Clinton the new Secretary-general of the United Nations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It doesn’t matter than Clinton doesn’t want to be Secretary-general of the UN, or that no one is even considering him for the job. Helms apparently believes Clinton hatred is so strong and irrational among his supporters that he’ll get some money from this scam anyway. What’s worse, he’s probably right.
\n<\/p>\n

“That’s right,” Helms writes. “Bill Clinton is actively seeking to head one of the most well-financed and influential world bodies ever created by man.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure you might agree that putting a left-wing, undisciplined and ethically challenged former president of the United States into a position of such power would be a tragic mistake,” Helms writes. <\/p>\n

“That’s why today, with Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton already serving the interests of the socialist-dominated U.N., conservatives like you and I cannot afford to sit back and allow Bill Clinton the chance to corrupt the rest of the world and impose ‘global taxation’ on our families.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard to get angry about such transparent foolishness. In fact, I can’t stop laughing at this. If I tried to come up with a mock letter intended to make Helms and the right look completely ridiculous, I couldn’t come up with anything half as absurd as this.<\/p>\n

Obviously, rational thought plays no role in this, but as a side note, I’d love to know what Helms’ supporters think he could do about this, even if it were true, which it isn’t. Clinton, from their pathological perspective, is going to take over the United Nations, impose “global taxation,” and work with his wife and the socialists on world domination. So, if I understand the message here, we should send Jesse Helms, a retired 83-year-old, money so that he can prevent this from catastrophe from happening? What, exactly, could he do that a Republican White House, Senate, and House couldn’t?<\/p>\n

A sad, small man can’t just ask his supporters for a check so that he can build a library. I’ve never felt so sorry for Jesse Helms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the outset, let me acknowledge that I wrote direct mail letters for nearly 10 years. I’ve written them for candidates at almost every level and for a non-profit organization. With this experience comes an appreciation that coming up with topics for these letters is not always easy. Unfortunately, all available evidence suggests direct mail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}