October 28, 2019 09:42 AM UTC

Presenting The Worst Mail Piece of 2019

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• by: Colorado Pols

This is a mail piece we were forwarded over the weekend from Americans For Prosperity, the national conservative message group with ties to the Koch political empire which has emerged as the principal opponent of Proposition CC on this year’s statewide ballot. We’ve paid quite a bit of attention in the last week or so to a major falsehood being circulated by Prop CC opponents, suggesting that the measure will “take away your tax refunds” with no distinction between the small and infrequent TABOR refunds which are the subject of Prop CC and the much more common income tax overpayment refunds millions of Americans get every year.

But here we have a very different approach: a mailer that says nothing whatsoever. There are literally no arguments against Prop CC to be found, just a bizarre non sequitur from voting “no” to taking your family skiing. The illustrations on the ad appear to be colored in with crayons by a young child. This isn’t the only message voters are getting on Proposition CC, of course, but this particular piece is more of an insult to voter’s intelligence than it is helpful for any kind of persuasion.

AFP’s bottomless pockets give their local operatives the resources to basically throw messages blindly at the proverbial wall to see what sticks. But not only is there a point of diminishing return as voters get saturated with competing messages, there’s a point where you’re actually doing more harm than good. Here’s one that should have never made it past the first draft.