I don’t know if most readers here would think that Wikipedia’s best-covered politician and Google’s best-listed website are all that similar, but I don’t think you can write it off entirely.
My reason for thinking so began after Mickey Kaus checked his e-mail inbox late last week, and asked:
Will Obama ever stop asking me for money? Or is it all fundraising, all the way out? … Not only is he still milking his supporters for money, he’s doing it in an obnoxious way, no? “Join us at the inauguration” turns out to mean “pay for other people to party at the inauguration you’re not going to”!
He’s got a point there. I’ve been on Obama’s list for more than a year now — my first post of 2008 was about how Obama’s campaign sent the year’s first campaign e-mail that New Years Day wee morning hours — and I’ve been getting (and half-paying attention to) them ever since. Here is my unofficial count (and anyone is welcome to do a recount) of the e-mails “Paid for by Obama for America” I have received in 2009, followed by that ubiquitous red button:
- Join us at the Inauguration, Jan. 3, Obama for America
- Our first guest, Jan. 6, Michelle Obama
- Be there for history, Jan. 7, Bill Clinton
- Deadline: Midnight, Jan. 8, Barack Obama
- Re: Midnight deadline, Jan. 8, David Plouffe
- Your call to service, Jan. 12, Michelle Obama
It’s a permanent campaign, all right.
He’s not President of the United States yet, I’ll give him that. But you would tend to think his fundraising goals have been satisfied — especially since his campaign let departing staffers have an extra month’s paycheck, plus their laptops and BlackBerrys (and a tip of the hat to Research in Motion’s PR department for getting reporters following AP style to not spell it “Blackberries”).
And you know what this reminds me of, as it might not remind most inside the Beltway? It’s not altogether unlike Wikipedia’s constant fundraising. As recently as December, Valleywag criticized the Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales-led on-site (always a banner across the top) fundraising drive mostly for being annoying and evidentiary of Wales being a poor leader of the website with the most comprehensive description of Regional variations of barbecue.
By early January, however, it turned out that Wikipedia had beaten its 2008 fundraising goals to the tune of $6.2 million. In the interests of disclosure as well as narrative, I’ll say that I donated as much to the Wikimedia Foundation this winter as I’ve donated in any one instance since Hurricane Katrina. So with that said, as I’ve been editing Wikipedia recently, I have often noticed this banner at the top of each article:
And what happens when you click on it? You come to a page with a letter of thanks from Wales. It looks like this:
Okay, so maybe Valleywag has a point about Wales as the public face of the website with the most informative biography of Portland, Oregon home furnishings salesman and television pitchman Tom Peterson.
And then, your eye drifts down the page to see this:
The permanent campaign, indeed.
P.S. I haven’t even mentioned that also this afternoon, Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC was asking $100 for this:
Don’t even get me started.