SearchUser loginNavigationCreate new accountTeam AgonistEditor in Chief: Steve Hynd ThoughtfulGlobalTimelyMixed Bag of Candy: Corner: Brian Downing's Picks: Numerian's Numbers: Who's onlineThere are currently 2 users and 1002 guests online.
Online users:Syndicate |
Republican Dirty Tricks: Robocall DisruptionI volunteered for the first time today for MoveOn's voter outreach program, where a group of dedicated people are manning a bunch of telephones to remind voters to vote next Tuesday. I was handed a list of voters to call from California's 50th district, where Francine Busby is trying to unseat Brian Bilbray, who narrowly defeated Busby in a contested election after the resignation of Duke Cunningham. As I was studying the Busby's short bio, the supervisor came and took back my handful of pages. "What's going on?" I asked. "We're canceling calls to the 50th district," she said. "People are complaining that they're getting robocalls from Busby, and they're really angry." I asked her to explain, and what I learned from her and other MoveOn staffers shocked me. Apparently, the Republican National Campaign Committee (RNCC) has sponsored a barrage of robotic telephone calls to Democratic voters. These lengthy calls leave the initial impression that they are being made on behalf of Francine Busby, but at the end they reverse course and endorse the Republican candidate, Brian Bilbray. Here's where it goes beyond clever, onward to diabolical: If the target hangs up, the program calls back. Over and over and over. The re-dials reportedly run upwards of 14 times. Worse, the phone rings early in the morning or very late at night, maximizing the anger generated by what appears to be a Democratic robocaller run amok. Only occasionally does a victim sit around to listen to the entire call, realizing that they've been played for a fool. After I heard this, the first thing I thought of was Karl Rove. Even if Rove didn't think this up, it's certainly in the spirit of Rove's brand of dirty tricks. Abuse of the system is the way these people work. The supervisor handed me a different page, one with numbers from Minnesota, where I grew up. The calls went fairly well, with a lot of citizens expressing frustration with the direction the country is going. I didn't mention to them how much worse the reality is. These Republicans really are scumbags, especially at the national level. How dare they even call themselves Americans anymore? I finished the numbers from Minnesota and got some sheets for people in Arizona. I hope I don't interrupt anybody's NFL viewing. Jimbo92107 November 6, 2006 - 12:00am
|
![]() Premium AdvertisingAgonist Page on FaceBookAgonist Facebook Activity |