I don’t know what has gotten into Bill & Hillary Clinton but yesterday I had an e-mail from her saying ‘Let’s Do Lunch’ and today I have one from him saying ‘Mind if I drop in?’. In the opening line Bill’s message says “I hear you might be having lunch with Hillary — do you mind if I drop in? “.

I am a cynical person and so I see that and want to run away from those e-mails as fast as possible, but maybe they work. Anyone have thoughts? If you have an e-mail from a former president pretending like he is going to have lunch with you and every three or four paragraphs it says CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE, would that make your heart melt?

I think I would rather have something in my inbox that would make me want to contribute to them and had immediacy to it. Like “Social Security Won’t Be in Danger with President Hillary Clinton”. She gave a speech most people probably did not hear the other day where she said she would pay full benefits and not raise the age-limit for SS. It would be a good way of tying her message, a topical and voter driven issue and an action “if you want to elect someone who will secure full benefits for you and your family, contribute” all in one.

From Bill’s all I know is Clinton is smart and wonderful and if I make a contribution I might win a chance to have a lunch with them. I don’t even get dinner! Just lunch and probably with eighteen staffers in the room. I might be willing to spend a dollar on a lottery ticket to win $10,000,000 even though I know the odds. Tossing in $50 for no real odds of winning a fruit salad and sandwich lunch with the Clinton’s, probably not.

If I can raise $2,300 I can just go pay to have dinner with them and Warren Buffet and a bunch of other cool rich people and it isn’t a content.

Again I am sorry, I am cynical, this might be the greatest idea ever. For me though, not so much.

You can read the official Federal Election Commission (FEC) letter here or check out a Associated Press article summarizing the decision here, also quoted below:

DailyKos, an influential political Web site that serves as a virtual bulletin board for liberals, qualifies as a media entity exempt from federal campaign finance regulations, the Federal Election Commission said Tuesday.

The FEC said the Web site, operated by blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, cannot be regulated as a political committee and can freely post blog entries that support candidates.

Conservative blogger John C.A. Bambenek had argued in a complaint last month that the site should comply with campaign finance laws because such entries amounted to “a gift of free advertising and candidate media services.’

So what does this mean? Good things for people like me ultimately. It is yet another step in the direction of regulators, opinion makers and the government looking at bloggers as real ‘media’ and guaranteeing us similar protections. It also ensures we can continue to provide editorial content in a free and relatively unrestricted environment.

From the decision:

In Matter Under Review (MUR) 5928, the Commission determined that Kos Media, L.L.C., which operates the website DailyKos, did not violate the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Commission rejected allegations that the site should be regulated as a political committee because it charges a fee to place advertising on its website and it provides “a gift of free advertising and candidate media services” by posting blog entries that support candidates. The Commission determined that the website falls squarely within the media exemption and is therefore not subject to federal regulation under the Act.

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Yes I did say I was bored with Fred Thompson’s campaign in the last post BUT this is a site about the 2008 elections and this is newsworthy. So here is Fred Thompson’s new ad running tonight during the Republican debate on FOX he is not attending.

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So around midnight the Web video announcing his candidacy hits the Internets at about the same time he will be appearing on Jay Leno on the east coast. Honestly, I have about zero interest in the whole thing.

This extended unofficial campaign, campaign, has really exhausted me on all things Fred Thompson. In about an hour the Republicans will debate, an ad will run for his campaign (well placed!) and he will basically be the big giant elephant in the room that will actually, most likely, be talked about.

The problem is, in my estimation, the last six months he has been built up so much he may have nowhere to go but down. Simple physics really. Unless he pulls a rabbit reading the constitution while holding a ventriloquists dummy whistling dixie out of a snow-cone, I don’t know if there is much that can really live up to expectations. His best selling point right now is that he isn’t any of the other candidates running. The rest is still circumspect.

Yes, I understand this is the group-think right now in prognostication but I am telling you from my own perspective I AM BORED with Thompson and he hasn’t even begun running yet.

A good sign that things are starting to heat up in the presidential race. Honestly I think most of the campaigns, up until now, have been doing a fairly decent job with keeping e-mails sparse but noticeable. I most often get messages from John McCain and they are usually pretty succinct and to the point (give us money, we are not in shambles, give us money).

I am using e-mail for a much different purpose than most of those who are probably subscribed. I skim the various fundraising messages to see if anything is new, it usually isn’t, then I delete. I rarely follow the links inside because I’ve already heard of whatever topic they are jumping on and I am not interested in giving money. So I am not the best judge of their effect.

With that said I have heard they are a good way to drive traffic to specific places and as action alerts for things happening in community sites I have to believe they are effective. I just personally see them as more junk in my inbox and now that we are getting close to the primaries I am sure I will be seeing plenty!