A potential supporter of Bob Hertzberg for mayor signed up through his website to receive email updates on the campaign. The first offering to hit her In Box did not leave her with a warm fuzzy feeling for the candidate, nor inspire confidence in his online acumen. Two brief excerpts:

From: "Bob Hertzberg" (catapult@doubledown- productions.com)
To: "All Hertzberg Supporters" (Catapult Strategies Mail List)
Subject: Things are starting to get interesting at ChangeLA.com
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:57:29 -0700

Did you know I have had well over 600,000 hits on my website, +ADw-A href+AD0AIg-http://changela.com +ACI- target+AD0AIgBf-blank+ACIAPg-http://changela.com+
ADw-/A+AD4-? I'm very gratified that so many people have taken the time to check out all the latest action on the site. Last week, for example, we got a discussion started in Los Angeles about whether the citywide crime stats going down a little are any comfort if you live in a neighborhood where crime is way up. Not only did we get a tremendous number of new visitors to the
+ADw-A href+AD0AIg-http://changela.com/crime
+AF8-map.htm+ACI- target+AD0AIgBf-blank+ACIAPg-crime map+ADw-/A+AD4- itself, but the LA Times, LA Daily News and a number of local blogs all wrote pieces about the discussion...

[fast forward]

If you have a friend or family member that would like to sign up for this email list please visit: +ADw-Ahref+AD0AIg-http://catapult.doubledown-productions.
com/default.aspx? msgid+AD0-1+ACI- target+AD0AIgBf-blank+
ACIAPg- http://catapult.doubledown-productions.com/default.aspx?msgid
+ AD0-1+ADw-/A+AD4- +ADw-/FONT+AD4-
+ADw-/TD+AD4APA-/TR+AD4- +ADw-TR valign+AD0AIg-top+
ACIAPgA8-TD valign+AD0AIg-top+ACI- align+AD0AIg-center
+ACIAPgA8-A href+AD0AIg-http://www.changela.com/+ACI- target+AD0AIgBf-blank+ACIAPgA8-IMG SRC+AD0AIg-

I'm sure she'll do that. The gibberish is as received, except that I added a space here and there so the long lines didn't disrupt my page. Perhaps it's karma for Hertzberg outsourcing his website design and servicing to Silicon Valley and Portland, instead of keeping the business in L.A. The recipient's take: "...would think it can only get better from here..."