Cross-posted on e.politics

Time for another in our occasional series of articles chronicling dueling emails from the Republican and Democratic National Committees (very exciting, yes). Today, the Rs struck first with a quite clever message from e-campaign director Cyrus Krohn hitting Hillary over the head about the release of Clinton presidential records. Sign the petition and get your own Clinton library card! No fundraising component until you've actually signed the petition (Cyrus, mine's under the name "Joe Bob Dobbs"), unlike with previous GOP messages, which seems odd, and I also see no counter, ticker or other active measure of the petition's success on the page. Still, an improvement over previous GOP efforts — at least it's topical and fun.

A vastly different message arrived from Howard Dean and the Dems this afternoon: they're circulating a strategy memo that (shocker) predicts major Democratic gains in 2008, assuming that we all pull together as a team and do our best to win one for the Gipper (oh, wait). Seriously, it's a fascinating idea to talk to your list members/supporters as intelligent human beings rather than just as organic ATMs or click-happy mass emailers. Of course, there's fundraising involved (note the challenge component), so it's a party-building exercise in more ways than one. Nice job all around.

Update: Now with typos and bad links fixed — the dangers of writing in a hurry.

– cpd