Presidential race drop-out Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump this week, leading to a strange joint appearance that transfixed the internet. Those eyes! Those eyes!
But while Christie’s love may have gone to Trump, his email list went to Marco Rubio…for a price. Why the split loyalties? One suspects it’s because Rubio was willing to cough up the cash: a list assembled by another Establishment candidate could pay off for the young senator from Florida, while Trump has shown little regard for donations and other details of modern campaigning.
As reported by Claude Brodesser-Akne, Rubio’s first message to Christie’s supporters walked this delicate line:
While the email makes it clear that while Rubio’s campaign is reaching the sender “because you are a part of Chris Christie’s online community”, it cautions that it “is not an endorsement by Chris Christie.”
Indeed, Christie was simultaneously plotting an alliance with Trump, in a brilliant strategy to create an axis of Northeastern bully-dom. Trump and Christie, two great tastes that taste great together! If your palate runs to flavors like bile and venom, of course.
Selling email lists is nothing new in politics, and as we mention in the most recent edition of C&E’s Technology Bytes, I’ve had the joy of watching my own email get shopped around to various conservative groups repeatedly. But one does have to wonder if Christie’s donors are going to be all that excited about Marco. By joining with the New Jersey governor, they’d already expressly taken sides against him. I’d LOVE to see the open, click, unsubscribe and spam numbers for that first send…and for his sake, I hope Rubio didn’t pay too much.
Thanks to PoliticalWire for catching the story in the first place.
I asked myself the same thing when I saw that this happen and the sale happened several days before the announcement so it may not have been simultaneously plotting. Schenker also put out there that Christie himself might not even know about the sale at the time. The other side really isn’t about best practices on this front. Another friend was at a public event where a firm was bragging about buying the Cuccinelli list and immediately selling it for a profit – again – bragging about it in public.
Oof, there’s no limit on douchery in this business.