Republican Robocall Pretexting Campaign

WCityMike writes, "In 53 Congressional campaigns across the country, including the Pennsylvania 6th, the Connecticut 4th, the North Carolina 11th, the New Hampshire 2nd, and the Illinois 6th and 8th (and possibly all races), the National Republican Congressional Committee is conducting a $2.1 million campaign to make it appear as if Democrats are spamming callers with telemarketing calls. The NRCC hired Conquest Communications Group to conduct a massive nationwide robocalling campaign with calls specifically scripted to appear as if they're coming from the Democratic candidate — in violation of FCC regulations on such 'robocalls,' which requires the identity of the caller to be stated at the beginning of the message [47 CFR 64.1200(b)(1)]. The call begins with 'Hello. I'm calling with information about,' and then says the name of the Democratic candidate. There is then a pause; if the recipient hangs up here, they will receive repeated calls back with the same message, potentially up to 18 times or more (according to one callee). If the callee doesn't hang up, they hear a smear message from the machine about the Democratic candidate. The NRCC thinks the legality of the calls is, conveniently, a 'complicated legal question that's not going to get adjudicated this weekend.'" Update 20:47 GMT by SM: Thankfully we all learned how to deal with these folks last week.

Comments

We've had these in NY-25 for about a week! Grr!

[Dr. Spork]

I'm good friends with Dan Maffei's webmaster, and she's been receiving complaints about these for about a week. Dan is the sort of candidate that wants to focus on the issues, but maybe if we had screamed louder about this, we could have prevented more of this outrage. The calls begin with "I'm calling with information about Dan Maffei." Then there is a long pause. If you hang up at that point, you will be called back, and the whole time you'll think it's Dan himself who's pestering you with the calls. We've had several people who tell us they meant to vote for Dan, but won't after the harassing robo-calls, which they blame on him.

Does anyone have an idea what we can do about this, one day before the election?

Re:We've had these in NY-25 for about a week! Grr!

[Billly Gates]

Go on the media and local news channels. This will piss enough voters off that they may vote for your candidate instead. Its worth a shot and mention you may sue them. Doing so will make the media frenzy around your candidate to get more airtime.

Re:Conquest Communication Group Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just give them a call at 804-358-0560?

Voter Information

[emil10001]

You can try this website:

http://www.vote-smart.org/

I'm in Mass, and I think they do a decent job with handling the information. For those who are in a voting office, you can see their records. Another really helpful thing is to check the NPAT (National Political Awareness Test) results, if available. Being the day before the election, the site seems to be running a bit slow, so be patient. Hope the site is helpful. (I am not affilated with vote-smart.org in any way)

Re:Why does this seem to be republican-only?

[Onan]

He's referring to the fraudulent letters distributed by Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen.

The letters were sent to 14,000 registered voters, and claimed (completely falsely) that naturalized citizens are not only ineligible to vote, but would be jailed or deported if they showed up at the polls. They were printed in letterhead that looked deceptively like that of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, and were signed by the completely fictional "Sergio Ramirez".

So I'm afraid that you're mistaken; these were naturalized citizens, registered voters, and the tactic was specifically designed to deceive them into forgoing their right to vote.

Or the RNC way?

[Travoltus]

Republicans engaged in phone jamming in 2004:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=18 29056

a Republican official was CONVICTED of this, too:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/16/AR2006051601712.html

If you're going to rip of MAD magazine...

[whyde]

at least give the attribution:

Guaranteed Effective All-Occasion Non-Slanderous Political Smear Speech
By Bill Garvin
MAD #139, December 1970

Re:"smear message"?

[sheldon]

I see you've drank the kool-aid.

Sure, you can keep paying off one credit card with another. But the issue of whether deficit spending actually boosts economic growth is up in the air. On one hand you do have the Keyensian economic effect.(which is interesting considering Republicans supposedly reject Keynes), but on the other hand you have the drain caused by interest payments. Interest ads no value. You're not creating any economic growth by spending $400 billion on interest, and you also have the issue of the $9 trillion which is tied up in federal bonds instead of being available for economic investment into the private sector.

The interesting thing is, we're at a point today where the interest payments on the Federal Debt(about $400 billion) is larger than the amount of the annual deficit(about $250 billion). So we're at a point now where if not for the debt, we'd have a balanced budget. So our debt is actually draining on our budget and making the debt larger. Why is that an issue? Because being in a situation where your debt keeps rising in order to pay off your existing debt is a recipe for bankruptcy.

So unless we do something stupid to stop economic growth, like raise taxes or pay off the debt early, this debt will never have to be paid off. It will be continually rolled into new debt without increasing our total debt burden.

Whoa... Your beyond drinking the kool-aid. Your flat off in la la land. Paying off the debt would not drain the economy, rather quite the opposite. It would free up the $9 trillion plus interest payments for private economic development.

fact, our current debt-to-GDP ratio is 65% and falling, meaning that our economy is growing faster than our debt is. What President Bush should do is a) further cut taxes or b) further increase spending to keep this ratio constant and promote the most economic growth. Personally, I prefer option (a).

debt-to-GDP is increasing, and has been for several years. http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

It would only be decreasing if the deficit was held to zero, allowing for inflation to decrease the present and future value of the debt. That hasn't happened since the Clinton era.

Your understanding of economics and deficit spending is disturbing. I've encountered it before, and it appears to be a result of a propaganda campaign by some Republicans to prop up their existing power structure. That is, ignore the problems and look at the furry rabbit slight of hand.

I don't know if it's worth responding to you, because I don't think you care about actually educating yourself and understanding the issues.