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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.
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
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 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.
You are correct, this typically is something done by the Republicans and not the Democrats. Sure, if you dig deep enough, you can find the story about a couple of Democratic supporters slashing the tires on the Republican parties "get out the vote" mobiles the night before the election, but such incidents are extremely few and far between, and I have yet to see one that was orchestrated on the party rather than individual level.
On the other hand, the Republican party thinks systematically, and when they find something that works they try to milk it in all of their campaigns. Hence the multiple sightings of lether-clad men in lingerie, the robo-calls, the fliers, the push polls, the recent NAMBLA-related smears showing up in close races all across the country (always raised, of course, by the Republicans). In the 2004 election is was church ministers talking about how Kerry (a Catholic) wanted to ban the bible, or mysterious robo-calls claiming to be from the Kerry campaign reminding people that "A vote for John Kerry is a vote for gay marriage," (even though Kerry had never taken a pro-gay marriage stance in his career).
I think, what it comes down to (I'm about to open myself for being flamed senseless), is that the party leadership in the Republican and Democratic parties have very different philosophies of what it means to run an election. Now, I'm speaking in generalities here, as there are some Republicans who I am rather fond of, and some Democrats that I intensely dislike. But in general, it seems that the Democrats have a philosophy more true to what has been enshrined in the constitution, and an overall sense of fairness. They seem to believe that all citizens have the right to vote, and have their vote counted, and have their voice heard no matter what their opinion is. They seem to want (generally) to allow the truth to speak for itself, and to get elected on the issues.
No doubt that there are many Republicans who feel the same way, but the party leadership (the Ken Mehlman and the Karl Rove types) either don't see or don't care about the importance of voting. They don't see it as a sacred right or responsibility. They see it as a means to an end, and that end is the Republicans getting and holding onto power. They (and again I'm referring to the party leadership and those that enable them, not necessarily the rank and file) believe that they are at war with the Democrats, and that any action that they can take that will result in their accruing more power is justified. They don't care how immoral or unethical it is, or even how illegal it is. They simply do whatever they can to win and then (if they get caught) pay the fines/do the time, though the punishment hardly matters if they had already achieved their goal. What's $5 million dollars in fines to the richest political party in the country, if it means that they can keep control of Congress or the White House? They can make that money back in a heartbeat by awarding no-bid contracts to the companies that are their staunchest supporters. The Republican leadership has come to terms with the notion of "acceptable losses" and "collateral damage" during the campaign, and unfortunately those losses include ethics and morals.
Now, I live in Ohio, and I'm sure that you've heard a lot about what sort of t
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.