GOP Consultants: Stop Blaming Others For the Problems You Created

The New York Times ran a big story last week on how GOP online donations are down 12% even as GOP enthusiasm seems to be surging.

The consultant class of the GOP is pushing the mythology that Google and Apple are flagging their emails because tech companies hate Republicans. I’ve spent a week on the phone with many Republican consultants, including those tied to campaigns whose emails make it to my inbox. They all tell me the same thing — the problem is not Google or Apple, but the GOP consultant class.

I think they are right. Concurrently, I would not be surprised if woke Google employees are trying to disrupt, but the consultants are giving them room to do so by poor email list management. Allow me to show you some screenshots of my junk mail folder. To be clear, I did not sign up for and do no wish to receive any of these emails. I did not consent to be on the email list of any of these campaigns. And yet…

I never signed up for a single one of these emails. That means some GOP consultant is sharing my name between lists.

It has been a recurring pattern.

Again, I have not donated to any of these candidates. I have not signed up for their email lists. And look at the bombarding I get from the candidates.

What’s going on here is one or more GOP consultant organizations engaged in a spam operation, which naturally trips the switches at companies monitoring email.

I talked to a Democrat consultant who tells me that his organization is very careful in how they steward emails in order to avoid tripping the spam filters. They spread out emails. They do not share emails. And they are careful when sending, how often they send, and how the batch sends.

That is good email stewardship.

I can tell from the volume I am getting from GOP consultants that they are abusing their email lists.

One GOP consultant told me he is familiar with a group that pitched his team on sharing email lists for greater revenue. He said the nationally known group that does a lot of work for party leaders and gets its emails regularly flagged sends six times a day and has duplicated its email list to route through three internet companies so a single person just might get eighteen emails a day.

As I’m typing on a Sunday afternoon, here are the emails I’ve gotten since I went to church and came home:

This does not include SMS text messages that also spam Republicans.

These are not examples of Google abusing Republican emails. This is an example of Republican consultants abusing emails they have access to and Google and Apple protecting their users from spam.

Unfortunately, the Republican consultants have the ears of their leaders and their solution is to pressure Google and Apple to let all the spam go through. They are selling Republican elected officials on the idea that Google is nefariously blocking their emails.

The reality is the consultants will not fess up to their abuses. They will not own up to their poor stewardship of email lists. They’ll claim the Democrats are more effective because of tech company biases and not because the Democrats are actually better stewards of an email file.

The reality though is easy to notice. Every Republican candidate whose emails make it past my spam folder and into my inbox use Republican consultants in their state or nationally not at one of the big groups.¹

One of the major groups seems to be the big exception. The Prosper Group is a major GOP consulting firm. Almost all its clients’ emails get through. One consultant who does not work for The Prosper Group but has dealt with them told me the reason is, based on his experience with them, The Prosper Group does good email list management and stewardship. In fact, multiple consultants not connected to them have singled out The Prosper Group for good email work and I can tell from my own emails that its clients’ emails get through.

One gubernatorial campaign’s staff tells me they use two vendors. Their national vendor’s emails generate a terrible rate of return and often go to spam. But their local consultant sends to the exact same emails, tends to have better creative work, and their emails almost always bypass spam filters.

The other major groups seem just to churn out so much that Apple and Google are doing their Republican users a favor and members of Congress, who hear the consultants whine, should be asking the consultants questions, not the tech companies.

Email and SMS spam are driving away small dollar Republican donors. The candidates are now reaping what their consultants have been sowing.

Oh look, just as I finished proof reading and hit publish, one more came through.

UPDATED: I’m headed to bed (I wrote this Sunday). It is 11:15pm. Look what’s come in in the past few hours. Again, I never gave money to these candidates or sought to be on their email lists.

1. Readers, you want to know what the big groups are. The problem is that if I name them, they’ll get super defensive, start emailing and calling and texting and I’ll spend my whole day dealing with a consultant class that can’t accept responsibility and wants to blame others.

Guys — spare me your emails, texts, and calls. I think highly of y’all and you’re super defensive on this and I don’t believe any of your excuses. You’re not going to get anywhere with me trying to defend this crap. I’m frankly furious about the SMS and email spam I have to deal with and I thank Google and Apple for sparing me what you are doing.