Wednesday, July 21, 2010

This Week the Ron Johnson Campaign will be Fixing an Inappropriate use of Email

The Northwestern has a interesting scoop on the misuse of the local Catholic School system's email list to find people to march with the Ron Johnson campaign in the city's 4th of July parade:
Unified Catholic Schools President Tony Blando on Tuesday acknowledged he "screwed up" when he sent a July 2 e-mail to UCS parents, staff and faculty asking them to support Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson by walking with him in Oshkosh's Independence Day Parade.

In the e-mail, Blando asked recipients to "show our support for our local U.S. Senate Candidate Ron Johnson" by joining the campaign staff in the Oshkosh Fourth of July parade. "We would like to have as many marchers as possible so please bring your family and friends." The e-mail also asked participants wear white and green clothes, the colors of Johnson's campaign, or red, white and blue attire. Blando's e-mail signature listed him as president of UCS and included his school-issued e-mail address.
A few thoughts:
  • According to the article the mistake was noted immediately:
Blando, who took a leave of absence to join Johnson's campaign staff, said he immediately tried to recall the e-mail out of concern it might alienate some of the system's families. He said he received many replies indicating people could or could not show up and one response chastising him for using the UCS e-mail system to cull support for Johnson to which he responded with an apology.
But it still took over two weeks for UCS to issue a statement? Maybe there was an internal investigation or a legal team was consulted, but that really seems like a long time to correct an error that was, apparently, recognized immediately.
  • No comment from the RJ Campaign?
On the bright side, in terms of "inappropriate" uses of new media are concerned, it could be a lot worse.

Apology emails from the UCS below courtesy of the NW:

Apology for USC email use

Apology from UCS

1 comment:

Display Name said...

Oh, yes, Outlook's "recall" feature always makes me laugh.