O-spam-a

Transformer Generation Dad is all about the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  It is one of my favorite sporting events of each year and the inspiration behind TGD's Geek Tournament.


Another thing I am into is respect for the Presidency.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion about any President, but when it comes down to it, whomever wins the election has my support and respect for four years to follow.  At the very least, I am willing to here them out.  I feel that the leader of our country ought to look good to the rest of the world.


So it was that I decided to participate in Barrack Obama's NCAA Tournament Challenge a few weeks ago.  What a fun idea, I thought.  It was an opportunity to fill out a bracket and see if I couldn't outsmart, or at least make more lucky guesses than, the leader of the free world.  It was the sort of down to earth thing that endears you to a public figure, whether you happened to care much for them prior to that or not.


I was completely unprepared for what was to come.



Over the past several weeks, my inbox has been swamped with emails.  Suddenly I am receiving electronic correspondence from members of the President's staff whom I had never heard of, Joe Biden, David Axelrod, Michelle Obama and the Commander in Chief himself.  While that would normally leave me feeling all self important (which I love), it has instead left me feeling used (which I only love sometimes) as the vast majority of these emails have been asking me to make campaign contributions.


Disappointingly, only one of these emails referenced my submitted bracket.  Even more disappointingly, it told me I was losing...big.


I have never contributed to a campaign fund.  I don't plan on starting now.  I don't frown on anyone else doing so, it's just not my thing.  I don't even donate when solicited by my high school or college.  I gave them tuition, they gave me an education.  I figure we're even.  Still, since my graduation many moons ago, I have not received the number of emails total from my alma mater that I have received from the Obama administration since submitting my NCAA bracket.


And so I find myself doing something that would have been unthinkable fifty, twenty, even just ten short years ago.  I find myself reacting in a way that people never would have when Kennedy addressed the nation or FDR held his Fireside Chats.  I am receiving correspondence from the President of the United States...and I'm marking it as spam.