Shelve the spam

Consider the requests for my bank account number by African widows of rich men desperate to give me $20 million, Asian-Fusion.com's feature on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and the one with this alluring line in the subject line: Inside windshield cleaning without straining your back.

The most enduring form of unwanted e-mail, porn notwithstanding, is political spam. It is a spam for all seasons. It doesn't come and go with fads. It comes and goes with elections, but the boilerplate material remains the same. It's only the names that change. Mark my words: Political spam will be around with the cockroaches long after our nuclear annihilation.

I'm talking e-mails from politicians of all stripes: Congress folk, state reps, city councilors, you name it. I often get three missives or more a day from Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Congressman Ed Markey is no slouch at this either. The Libertarian Party weighs in regularly. It goes on.

My favorites often come from Barney Keller, who can knock off five a day without breaking a sweat. He creates the e-mail equivalent of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. Keller, 24, became a boychick Republican when he watched Bill Weld run for governor. Today, he is communications director for the state Republican Party, which in geopolitical terms is the equivalent of being foreign minister of Andorra.

He and a small cohort of staffers work out of a modest suite of offices a couple of stone throws from what is soon to be called the TD Garden. It's not quite private eye Philip Marlowe's lonely digs behind a frosted-glass door, but the place had a hollowness that reflects the struggle of the party to stay alive, much less relevant.

Remember, a mere 12 percent of Massachusetts voters are registered Republicans. The few, the proud. I love the crocodile tears shed by Democrats who mourn the demise of a robust two-party system here. They don't mean a word of it, of course, and crave total domination. That's why I can succumb to a Keller e-mail. Democratic hegemony has not always been a crackling success. I learned in fifth grade that Democrats can foul up a two-car funeral. I learned in the cradle that Republicans are beyond the pale.

Keller blankets me with e-mail as he does about 600 other reporters and editors across the state. What these e-mails get is tiresome. I don't want five e-mails a day from Barack Obama, let alone Barney Keller. I tried to unsubscribe once to no avail. His manic behavior reminds me of someone lobbing water balloons at a rhino. But say this for the guy: He's one happy political warrior. "If reporters can get a chuckle out of it, that's a positive image for the Republican Party here," he maintains about one typical missive. Those would be the ones whose eyes have not yet glazed over from the cascade of Kellerisms they receive.

Many of his messages are informative, some sophomoric, but there is a refreshing insouciance to Keller's missives. Governor Deval Patrick is the gift that keeps on giving. One of Keller's staples is called Deval's "Trivial" Pursuit, anchored by the T word that the governor used early in office about the hue and cry over his choice of a Cadillac as his official vehicle. He used it again early in the recent mayhem over patronage jobs, including the $175,000-a-year beauty he offered to state senator and political ally Marian Walsh.

(The governor has yet to learn there is no such thing as "trivial" in politics. The word is used almost exclusively by politicians on the defensive and anyone indicted for a crime.)

In another one of his trivial pursuit messages last week, Keller came up with a hypothetical Massachusetts MasterCard commercial. Part of it includes: "New hire Robert Rooney as "assistant chief engineer" - $122,000. Governor Patrick trying to use a traffic jam on the Turnpike to justify a massive gas tax hike? Priceless."

Keller lifts heavily from the media for another feature, "In Case You Missed It," where he promotes stories by local reporters that cite inconsistencies in Patrick's promises and actions and anything else that makes him look bad. When disgraced former state senator Dianne Wilkerson was hit with 23 corruption charges earlier this month, Keller promptly reminded us that Patrick initially supported her bid for reelection. He e-mailed to everyone on his list the text of Patrick's taped message that arrived on voters' phones urging them to vote for Wilkinson, and just for safe measure, included the actual audio message for all those who can't read. Barney, PR 101, overkill is toxic.

Keller says he has never been challenged on accuracy. As expected, Patrick ignores him. So does the state Democratic Party. When pressed, Democratic chairman John Walsh says, "I say a prayer every night that he remains at the Republican Party so long that he gets a pension there."

Proud of his output, Keller asks me when was the last time I got an e-mail from the state Democratic Party. I pause and realize I have never received anything from the Democrats. How restful. I assume I'm not on their mailing list, which must be a good thing. How I got on Keller's list is beyond me, but I've decided to call it a day. My eyes are glazing over. Barney, it was fun while it lasted.

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com