A new class of spam is sliding into in-boxes alongside pitches for Viagra and low-interest loans. It's coming from President George Bush and Democratic frontrunner Senator John Kerry and their supporters.

Political groups I spoke with say e-mail is an inexpensive supplement to television, radio, and print ads that reach out to the electorate.

The Bush-Cheney campaign reports it has amassed 6 million e-mail addresses. Its last bulk e-mail blast to supporters includes a link back to the official campaign site GeorgeWBush.com and to an anti-Kerry ad that alleges he is "wrong on defense."

Kerry's e-campaign hub, JohnKerry.com, portrays the senator as being strong on defense. And his campaign issued a rapid-response e-mail message to 600,000 supporters denying the Bush camp's claims. The next day it fired off a message featuring liberal political strategist James Carville proclaiming that it's time to get rid of the "Bush crowd." The message is one in a series of Democratic party e-mail communications containing testimonials from political celebrities, including former president Bill Clinton.

Typically, both parties include at the end of their messages a request that recipients forward the e-mail to at least five friends.

Special Interest Spam

White House hopefuls aren't the only folks taking advantage of the ubiquity and low cost of e-mail. Conservative and liberal groups alike use spamlike tactics to promote their causes.

The conservative GrassFire.org is an issue-driven group that recently sent 300,000 e-mail invitations to view an online ad that calls Massachusetts senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy "opponents to conservative values." GrassFire.org representatives say they hope its e-mail will be forwarded repeatedly. Their goal is for 1 million people to view this ad online.

The avowedly anti-Bush liberal group MoveOn.org and the conservative group Citizens United also use mass mailings with pass-along messages to rally the troops. Both of these political special interest groups are just starting to rev their political online campaigns, sending out weekly messages to a growing portion of the wired electorate.

The reach of political spam still pales in comparison to the audience reached by prime-time television ads. However, since e-mail can be easily forwarded to huge numbers of people at no cost, it competes with broadcast TV, radio, and print ads, says Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University.

Better yet, Darr says, when e-mail is forwarded from friend to friend it wields considerably more influence than a generic radio ad for a candidate. Judging from the "please forward" message that invariably accompanies political spam, campaigns aren't overlooking the opportunity to land in lots of in-boxes.

Outside the Law

If you don't like the political spam you're getting, you're out of luck this season. That's because the recently enacted Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, known as CAN-SPAM, applies to unsolicited commercial e-mail only, not to unsolicited political e-mail.

For the record, both the Kerry and Bush campaigns told me their bulk e-mail lists are homegrown and generated exclusively by people who have opted in to receive the candidates' e-mail.

Political spam beyond the White House race is likely to grow as well. The New York Times reports at least 40 House members have bought or agreed to buy e-mail address lists from at least four vendors to promote themselves online.

If that isn't bad enough, political pleas to your in-box will only pick up during the critical 90-day period before Congressional elections. That's because the Internet is exempt from a House of Representatives rule that mandates a blackout on all bulk snail-mail messages 90 days before an election.

Whether a campaign can be won in your in-box is yet to be determined. Representatives of both campaigns and political analysts agree the Internet holds much potential for politicians, and say they'll watch the presidential race closely to see if in-box politics holds any sway.

But if politicians don't carefully walk the fine line between spam and e-mail that people are interested in they might just be giving us another reason to distrust politicians instead of voting for one.

Q&A

Q. I spend long hours tweaking my spam filter and complaining to my ISP about spammers. Is there anything more I can do to prevent spam?

A. As a matter of fact, there is. First of all, some excellent online discussion groups will help you learn more about spam.

You may also want to join a spam fighting effort that is looking for members and volunteers to help fight spam. SpamCon works to protect e-mail "as a viable communication and commerce medium by supporting measures to reduce the amount of unsolicited email that crosses private networks," according to its Web site. The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail is a antispam lobby that works to shape spam laws and fight "bad" spam laws.

And if you don't think the CAN-SPAM law is doing its job, or want to comment on the proposed Do Not Spam registry, contact the Federal Trade Commission: The FTC is soliciting comments on these issues. E-mail away!

Send gripes, questions, and tips for the spam wars to spamwatch@pcworld.com. Go to the Spam Watch page for more articles.