I got an envelope in the mail today responding to my political experiment of writing to each of my four preferred Democratic presidential candidates.
The winner of the bonus points for being the first to respond is Howard Dean, with a turnaround time of 7 post-office days. I received what appears to be the standard "thank your for writing" form letter and summary of major policy points. However, the bottom quarter of the form letter carries the following handwritten note in blue ballpoint pen:
"Janet,
Dr. Dean was my governor for 11 years and I felt he did an outstanding job. This is the first time I have been motivated enough to work on a presidential campaign in my life. Regarding domestic violence, as governor, Dr. Dean was very sensitive to this issue regarding both men and women. He linked much of this problem to its roots in early childhood and established programs in the state to address it.
A Dean Volunteer"
The handwriting is neat, without being that cutesy girly kind of neat. Actually, it looks like what Elie's handwriting might if he were right handed. As a review, I asked Howard Dean if he would extend his rhetoric on domestic violence to cover male victims, who comprise about 1/4 of domestic violence victims.
So points awarded to Howard Dean for promptness of reply, addressing and acknowledging the question (while not actually answering it or providing concrete details on these "programs"), and getting a campaign volunteer to add a personal note. Also, he keeps all points awarded for grammatical correctness, with one extra bonus point awarded for employing a campaign worker who can construct four coherent, reasonably complex sentences without a major error in spelling or grammar. You'd be amazed at the number of people for whom that is an insurmountable challenge.
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