Jon Ossoff is losing! Oh, never mind, he’s winning! Actually, just give up and go home—or donate now, and take advantage of a special matching offer!

Subtract Ossoff’s name, and you could be forgiven for thinking this is a pitch from the Home Shopping Network, rather than emails produced by a congressional campaign. They reflect old marketing tactics—blitz your audience, mislead them if necessary—and they are divisive. Proponents insist that the emails, as deranged as they might seem, work. Critics argue that the tactic has a short shelf life and is deceptive.

A screengrab of an email from the Jon Ossoff campaign.

And in an era when email has become a crucial tool in reaching voters and raising money, they raise a broader question: Is this the best way for the Democratic Party to rebuild itself?

No special election in 2017 attracted the party’s interest like Ossoff’s race against Karen Handel to represent Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District. Democrats wanted not only a much-needed seat in the House of Representatives, but a pretty scalp: It’s Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s old district, and President Donald Trump barely won it last November. Ossoff’s strong showing in the first round of voting encouraged the DCCC to spend nearly $5 million on his campaign.

With Mothership Strategies consulting, the campaign launched a frenetic email fundraising drive that contributed to the race becoming the most expensive in the history of the House. Mothership was founded by DCCC veterans, and the online fundraising strategy it helped the Ossoff campaign develop is a descendant of the DCCC’s infamous 2014 strategy, which the Daily Beast described as “part fundraising pitch, part hostage note.”