Goldberg to Attend Lowell Lt Gov Forum
I meant to announce this earlier, but I’ve been running between two offices and sometimes without internet. But we’ve received confirmation that Deb Goldberg will indeed be attending the May 21 2pm Lt Governors “Inform Your Choice” Forum being held at the Lowell Senior Center (more info here, as well as posters and postcards to download and pass around). This means that all four Democrats running for Lt Governor will be there, and this is a perfect opportunity for anyone, including Democratic delegates looking to make a choice for June’s convention, to have their questions answered in person.
Consider this your thread to ask those questions. We will take them via comments, email, and at the Forum itself.
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April 28th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Thanks Lynne, Susan, et al, for setting this up. As a currently undecided delegate (for Lt. Gov.) this will be an excellent opportunity. If I can come up with any specific questions between now and then, I’ll let you know.
April 28th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Thanks, Tim! This LG forum is truly a colloborative effort.
Another thing that I’ve been asking folks to do as they mention that they plan to attend the forum is, if they could bring along a friend. We all have friends who aren’t as active online as many of us bloggers and activists are. This forum is a great opportunity for any undecided voters to come out and see the candidates first hand.
April 28th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
A (semi serious) question for the candidates:
If (hypothetically speaking) you happened have an email list with zero meaningful content,
and (hypothetically speaking) your PR firm was too inept to even answer my (3) removal requests let alone act on them.
…what (hypothetically speaking) possible reason would I have for voting for you?
April 28th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Dan - is there a link to unsubscribe on your unwanted e-mail? Most bulk e-mails have a link at the bottom of the message to unsubscribe.
Not voting for a candidate because you don’t like getting their e-mail updates seems pretty random. Most candidates are, at best, marginally involved with the technical aspects of their websites and e-mail lists.
April 29th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
>is there a link to unsubscribe on your unwanted e-mail?
Nope, from memory of the headers, the whole thing looks to be “managed” as a BCC to somebody’s Outlook address book.
> Not voting for a candidate because you don’t like
> getting their e-mail updates seems pretty random
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that people hate SPAM and are enraged when you ignore their requests to be taken off the list.
Governing requires delegating work you don’t understand. Evaluating people who have skills you don’t have, is a skill and arguably an essential one for a would-be executive.
If a candidate can’t find a slightly clued manager for his or her mailing list, odds are pretty good, they’ll have trouble finding a decent constituent services manager or getting sensible advice about wind farms.
The best job interview questions are based on scenarios related to the job. A job interview for a manager doesn’t ask:
“Where do you want to be in five years?”
Yeah, my original question was probably too snarky to be useful, but I think it is reasonable to ask:
“How would you handle a member of the public who complains
to you, that he’s not been taken off your mailing list in
3 requests.”
April 30th, 2006 at 12:26 am
Enraged over SPAM seems a bit extreme, but YMMV.
Your other option would be to just filter the offending email to bypass your inbox and go right into your trash bin. Thereby allowing potential elected officials to handle the real challenges our state faces, rather than a pesky e-mail problem you can handle yourself.
I’m down with the snarky too.
April 30th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Regarding Mariposa’s comment about SPAM filters–maybe Dan MacNeil does not have access to filters. At home I use PuTTY and I haven’t a clue about filtering my EMail. (Or, since I am probably going to vote for Reed for Lt Gov and am skipping this event, maybe that last sentence was four words too long).
Regards — Cliff (Lost in Lowell)
April 30th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
If Dan has access to a computer, he probably knows about Google.
If you want to filter your mail, type: Puttymail filters
Hope that helps.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
I fear this discussion is a bit of a tar baby and that soon I will be daring y’all to throw me in the brier patch but…
>maybe Dan MacNeil does not have access to filters.
I am reasonably familiar with server-side spam filtering, and distributed anti-spam databases. I administer such systems on servers handling between 350 and 3500 users. I also administer a few 1500 to 4000 member double opt-in email lists.
With just a little more of your patient guidance, I suspect I could probably handle globally blacklisting IP# and domains of the candidate in question.
However, the point I am (apparently unsuccessfully) trying to make is that there are certain basic measures of clue in direct email, (double opt-in, immediate automated removal on request, privacy, etc,etc) and that lack of clue in one area is often correlated with lack of clue in another.
Absolutely, the candidate doesn’t need to know the difference between SORBS and SURBL but he or she should have the people skills or contacts or common sense to find a vendor or friend who can click next a few times to install mailing list software that handles removals gracefully.
Telling me to use a client side spam filter is a bit like telling me “That bumper sticker on your windshield will come off with soap and elbow grease” or “Your political contribution isn’t tax deductable anyway so don’t worry about a receipt.” or “Of course it is OK that campaign accounting standards allow people to approve their own expenses.”