'Where every day is a campaign'

I was sorting through the daily deluge of emails recently when I came across yet another holiday greeting, this one from something called electionmall.com. What caught my eye was the company's slogan: "Where every day is a campaign."

Was that supposed to encourage me go to the website? It sounded more like an invitation to a nightmare, or perhaps an apt description of the current state of American politics.

But it worked.

Intrigued, I visited the electionmall and found a site that offers for sale various computer programs and products to help organize and run an online campaign -- management tools, promotion materials, fundraising software, and website construction, for example.

Leading the company is CEO Ravi Singh, the son of immigrants who grew up in the Chicago area and got his first taste of politics when running (apparently unsuccessfully) for state representative in Illinois. Beginning in 1999, he created a business model based on the power of the Internet to influence elections.

Electionmall has expanded globally, becoming involved in elections in South America and Asia. The company counts working with Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos as among its success stories. Santos was elected in August 2010.

So while a place "where every day is a campaign" is not most people's idea of a good time, it is apparently a business idea that's worked well for Mr. Singh and electionmall -- and ain't that America.