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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.
negative advertising (including "smear messages") is the most useful information to have.
You would not believe how difficult it is to effectively judge a candidate unless you hear them speak live. I spent quite a bit of time perusing newspapers, candidate websites, and Google trying to find information to base my determinations for voting this election.
I am getting so much negative campaigning but not enough real facts from the candidates themselves. I really wish that someone would stop the fucking smear campaigns and instead clearly list what they intend to do. If they ran before, I want someone (obviously the campaigns website won't) to list exactly what they said they were going to do and exactly what they did do so I can compare.
If this information is easily accessible in the State of Minnesota, please let me know where it is. My current vote is based on what I have gleamed from the newspapers and the campaign websites. Bleh.
I suppose my methodology is better than my co-workers who are "voting Union line" or someone who is "voting Party line."
"If you vote Republican, are you guilty of their crimes?"
This is not a useful comment in the light of the real issue being reported in the original post. You have picked a one-up, unique situation where a rogue individual serves as a bad example of how to conduct oneself during an election. The RNCC actions, on the other hand, are a disgraceful, and illegal action attempting to disenfranchise voters, or get them to think ill of the Democrat candidate at a grand scale (much more effect than a few slashed tires). This is so much more duplicitous and underhanded than one guy's son getting caught slashing tires of potential voters, not that the dumbass who did the tire-slashing deserves any less jail time than those that are behind the the robocalls.
I believe that Republicans vote Republican and Democrats vote Democrat....the campaign managers know this and they have a pretty good idea of how many of each demographic they have to work with. So, their job isn't to try and convince you who to vote for, you've already decided that. Their job is to get you into the polls so you can actually cast that vote.
Somewhere along the line, they decided that the best motivator was to get you pissed off enough at the other guy that you would make the time to get into the polls.
Unfortunately, this has caused campaigns to go from "vote for me because" to "don't vote for the other guy because".
It just seems to get worse with time.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
That was one person. This is the RNC itself.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I really don't want to be part of a flame war (I like my karma where it is right now), but it really seems to me that republicans pull this crap off a lot more than democrats. Thinks like the "democrats vote on wednesdays" campaigns, or "[legal] immigrants will be arrested if they come to the polls", or men dressed as leather lingerie-clad homosexuals with signs saying "Vote Democrat so I can adopt" seem to be everywhere. Does anyone have any examples of this happening against republicans? I'll gladly retract my statement if I can see a couple Democrat-sanctioned examples somewhere. I'm aware that I'm a democrat and therefore have selective exposure, but I'm trying to keep an open mind.
It's so morally corrupt that I find it hard to believe that half the country is in the same party as these people. I know that half the country isn't morally corrupt, yet they allow (and often support) this sort of thing.
Here's a column published in Philly by someone thinking Democrats were harassing her with robocalls. Even though they sensibly asked why Democrats would do such a thing when it would turn voters off, they thought it was the Democratic candidate. Pretty typical reaction.
Their untypical reaction was to call the Democrat's office demanding an explanation. Which turned out to be "it's a Republican dirty trick". But how many people will find out before voting? And how many people will believe it's not Democrats lying to blame Republicans, when they already believe Democrats have been harassing them with robocalls?
Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, Republicans have followed up their 2002 phonejamming of Democrats' lines (preventing Democrats from getting voters to polls) with enough illegal robocalls to cost $100 MILLION in fines. Of course, those 2002 robocalls got John Sununu Jr (R-NH) into the Senate, where he controls the FCC, and he hasn't given up the job he DDoS'ed his way into. So I don't expect Republicans to cough up the $100M they'd owe for this year's attack on the election process.
Unless maybe enough Republicans get fired in the election tomorrow that they can't do these crimes unpunished anymore. Go to the polls and do your part.
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make install -not war
The actions of a few Democratic campaign workers who affected a few Republican voters in no way compares to a coordinated, tens or hundreds of thousand dollar strategy by a national Republican organization, affecting over 300,000 Democratic voters.
I have a strange request, coming from a lifelong Democrat. I have no idea if you're ideologically committed to the right, but if you are, consider runing for office sometime in the future - as a Republican. I really believe our system works best when there are two parties with honest differences of opinion, that practice their differences more or less honestly (yes, politics is a dirty business, but things have really gotten out of hand). So if you can play your part in deliver our nation back to good old open debate about what the government should or shouldn't do here or abroad, we'll all be better off for it.
Your taxes are not lower. The Bush administration has failed to cut spending to pay their tax cuts and in fact has dramatically increased spending. Thus the present value of taxes you will pay over your lifetime has risen under the Bush administration since the 100s of billions of dollars of debt the Bush administration has run up will have to be paid from future taxes. You are not paying these taxes this year but you will have to pay them in the future. Ask any economist and they will tell that lowering taxes without cutting spending is an increase and not a reduction in your lifetime tax payments.
Bush has essentially given you a loan which will have to be paid back (with interest) by higher taxes in the future.
I really wish that someone would clearly list what they intend to do.
It's not in their interest to do that, because they'll lose the votes of everyone who hates that. They want to be as ambiguous as possible so that nobody can find a reason to vote against them.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm against only counting American lives lost. It's so easy to slap the label of "Iraqi" on somebody and not worry about it (as much) because they were "supposed" to die. In my book, lives lost are fellow human beings who are now dead, and the decision to invade Iraq has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties.
The problem with your logic is that Bush is spending much more than you're saving. Even if he hadn't pushed through the tax cuts, we would be running a deficit right now. The tax cuts just add insult to injury.
Furthermore, this isn't just a issue for us, it's an issue for our children and grandchildren. THEY will be paying for the excesses of this decade, and they'll have to pay our debts at the same time they're funding Social Security for the baby boomers.
Seriously, this is bad.