Blog: Political Calls Are Driving Me Nuts

January 28, 2008

If you are registered voter in Escambia County, I bet your phone has been ringing more than you’d like with prerecorded candidate calls. They have been about to drive me nuts the past few days.

You can register for the national Do Not Call Registry and even pay to be on the state’s do-not-call list, but it’s not going to stop the political calls. Do you think politicians are going to regulate their ability to call you? Nope. They are as legal as they can be.

As of Sunday night, the McCain campaign has placed the most calls to me. Recorded calls from smooth announcer voices, recorded calls in McCain’s voice and even recorded calls from his wife. I’m guessing that by the time Tuesday rolls around, it would not surprise me to get a call from his dog or his third cousin Mark’s second cousin twice removed.

There have been the live calls too. Some candidates are actually signing up regular folks to call a list of number from their homes and pitch the candidate.

“Do you want to take a survey about your political preferences?” one caller Saturday wanted to know. Yes, I do. My preference is to hang up now. After all, it’s my phone, my time and my biscuit getting cold on the table.

I’d like to think that if you are reading this far into this blog posting that you are an informed adult, perfectly capable of making decisions now swayed by a phone call at supper. You read NorthEscambia.com, you watch the evening news and read a newspaper or two. Is the recorded call from the candidate’s wife going to change your mind in the 11th hour?

I heard one voter say he had narrowed his choice down to two candidates in his party for Tuesday. Both had been calling his house. The one that called the most will lose his vote. Oops. That political strategy backfired a bit.

When one of the candidates decides to call me in person, I’ll listen. Until then, I’ll get up from the table and answer the phone and grumble a bit that my biscuit is getting cold. I don’t like cold biscuits, and taking me away from a hot meal equals a bad idea.

Got to go answer the phone now. The caller id says “P. Call 000-000-0000″. Nothing like a candidate that tries to block their caller id. I think I’ll let my six year old answer and talk to them.

This is going to be fun.

–William

Comments

One Response to “Blog: Political Calls Are Driving Me Nuts”

  1. Delane Garrett on August 3rd, 2008 7:25 pm

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under Blog, News