Underfunded Challenger Turns To Email

From: Brian Holtz, Libertarian for Congress	Text/Voice/Video chat:
http://marketliberal.org/Announcement20041031.html	Cell: 650-305-0582
For Immediate Release	Home: 650-654-6589

Sunnyvale, CA - Oct 31, 2004 -- Silicon Valley congresswoman Anna Eshoo is a lock for re-election on Tuesday, but Libertarian challenger and Yahoo engineer Brian Holtz is hoping that the Internet can help level the playing field against the overwhelming fundraising advantage that incumbents enjoy.

Holtz is running for Congress against 7-term incumbent Democrat Eshoo in a district that stretches from Saratoga to Belmont and Scotts Valley to Half Moon Bay. Holtz is trying to shake up an election which threatens to be a replay of 1998, in which Eshoo outspent the same Republican opponent $450K to $35K and outpolled him 69% to 28%. Republican Chris Haugen, a teacher at a Christian private school in Sunnyvale, has spent about $50K to Eshoo's $600K.

Holtz can't match Eshoo's well-financed ability to put a campaign pitch on the voters' televisions or in their curbside mailboxes, so he's putting his message into their electronic inboxes instead. On Saturday Holtz sent an email to the 17,000 voters (out of 368,000) in his district who had voluntarily given their email address when they registered to vote. He is treading very carefully into the uncharted waters of what might be considered election spam. He says the federal CAN-SPAM Act preempts state anti-spam laws and allows unsolicited political email. His Libertarian Party still shies away from such techniques, and so his email explicitly says it is not from any unit of the party. He sent an initial test email to the fifty addresses on the list that appeared to be spamtraps -- addresses like "voterspam@holtz.org". The responses from these spam-sensitive voters were only positive, citing the email's explanatory postscript:

"P.S. The voluntarily-disclosed email addresses of registered voters are available to any candidate by state law [EC2194(2)]. This will be my only such email for this election. To never receive mass email from me again, click here. This email is from me, Brian Holtz, and not from any unit of the Libertarian Party. I personally bond this email as not spam. If this email was so unwelcome that you want to sanction me, then click here. For each recipient who does so, I will donate $1 to SpamCon's anti-spam legal defense fund. "

In the first 24 hours after the mass mailing, Holtz says he received about a dozen opt-outs from any future emails, and half a dozen invocations of the $1 sanction. "I wouldn't hesitate to pay the full $17K if every single voter complained. I hate spam almost as much as I hate the waste of trees that goes into political mailings, and both problems would end immediately if every spammer and every politician followed the rules I've voluntarily imposed on myself."

Holtz also said he received over a dozen positive replies, both from Libertarians who thought they were alone in their beliefs, and from non-Libertarians who had already voted absentee but might consider voting Libertarian the next time. The software engineer is bullish on the Internet as a way to help level the playing field in the future for candidates whose sincerity and ideas are bigger than their list of special-interest donors. "In the future the Internet is only going to make it easier for candidates to get their message to the civic-minded voters in their district who really do want to give equal time to each of the choices on their ballot."

Holtz has attempted unusual outreach efforts before. In May he issued a challenge to voters in his Silicon Valley district: "If you can pass a short quiz on my positions, and still say you won't vote for me, I'll send you $2." Despite a steady stream of around 30 visitors a day to his campaign web site, and despite news coverage that included a mention on the national Fox News, only one voter has tried to claim the bounty (which Holtz increased to $5 a few weeks ago). Holtz promptly sent the $5, and the voter thanked him by email and asked a couple questions. "The conversation is still going, and I still hope to convert this guy," Holtz says.

The candidate also offers his instant messenger address on his web page, and so a few voters have chatted him up live over the course of the campaign. Last week one voter had some foreign policy questions while filling out an absentee ballot, and after a twenty-minute online conversation Holtz was told he'd won that vote. "Twenty minutes to get one vote may not be very efficient, but twenty minutes to move one mind toward Liberty is definitely worthwhile," Holtz explained.

The Libertarian describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social liberal. "The Democrats want government to be our nanny. The Republicans want government to be our chaperone. Both parties are out of step with Silicon Valley. I want government to be just our referee and lifeguard, and treat us like grownups." If elected, Holtz says his priorities would be "market-based reforms of bankrupt entitlement programs, eradication of corporate welfare, and protecting the environment by legally recognizing its economic value."

Currently predicting he will only win about 4% at the polls, the long shot challenger denies that a vote for him is a wasted vote. "The incumbent has won four straight elections by a 2-to-1 margin. Which vote is more wasted, a vote that ratifies a predetermined outcome, or a vote to push the two parties toward free minds and free markets?"

Holtz's campaign site is marketliberal.org. Rep. Eshoo's campaign site is annaeshooforcongress.com. Chris Haugen's campaign site is haugenforcongress.com.


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