More Fun From The Party Of Moral Values

by hilzoy

Josh Marshall has been reporting a new and despicable set of dirty tricks: robocalls that call over and over, or in the middle of the night, pretending to be for one candidate when in fact they are from another. The point, apparently, is to annoy voters so much that they decide not to vote for the candidate they (mistakenly) think is making the calls. One example from the Philadelphia daily News:

"BEING SICK in bed, which I was for the past couple of weeks, is bad enough.

But being sick in bed while living in a political combat zone - in this case, the 6th Congressional District - is enough to MAKE YOU WANT TO KILL SOMEBODY.

My God, the phone calls! Just as I'd begin to drift off to sleep, the phone would ring and it would be YET ANOTHER DAMN COMPUTERIZED MESSAGE ABOUT LOIS MURPHY.

One, two, three, four times a day it seemed, the phone rang with "robocalls" about the Democratic challenger to incumbent GOP Rep. Jim Gerlach in one of the nastiest races in the country.

I never listened to one word of it, just slammed the phone down and seethed with resentment. (...)

But if they annoy voters rather than enlighten them, what's the point?

That's what I asked Lois Murphy's campaign yesterday.

The answer was simple:

"It's not us!"

Only three recorded calls have been made on behalf of Murphy's campaign, including one from Gov. Rendell, which were sponsored by the Democratic State Committee.

The rest? A "dirty trick" by the Republicans, said communications director Amy Bonitatibus.

The calls, which begin by offering "important information about Lois Murphy," are designed to mislead voters into thinking the message is from her.

Most recipients slam down the phone before finding out otherwise - and then call to complain.

"We've got a ton of complaints, starting about two weeks ago," Bonitatibus said.

"Some of our biggest supporters have said, 'If you call me again, I'm not voting for Lois.' ""

Josh Marshall has more examples: New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, Kansas, and others. Most of them seem to be funded by the National Republican Congressional Committee:

"In at least 53 competitive House races, the National Republican Campaign Committee has launched hundreds of thousands of automated telephone calls, known as "robo calls." (...)

The NRCC, the GOP campaign arm for House candidates, has spent $2.1 million on such automated calls nationwide. In Illinois, at least three versions of a phone message target Tammy Duckworth, the Democrat in a tight Chicago-area race, and her positions on taxes, Social Security and immigrants."

And then there are the push polls. From the NYT:

"An automated voice at the other end of the telephone line asks whether you believe that judges who “push homosexual marriage and create new rights like abortion and sodomy” should be controlled. If your reply is “yes,” the voice lets you know that the Democratic candidate in the Senate race in Montana, Jon Tester, is not your man.

In Maryland, a similar question-and-answer sequence suggests that only the Republican Senate candidate would keep the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. In Tennessee, another paints the Democrat as wanting to give foreign terrorists “the same legal rights and privileges” as Americans.

Using a telemarketing tactic that is best known for steering consumers to buy products, the organizers of the political telephone calls say they have reached hundreds of thousands of homes in five states over the last several weeks in a push to win votes for Republicans."

Luckily, in addition to doing the reporting, TPM has also provided an email from a reader that states my views so well that it would be pointless for me to try to think of a better way to say it:

"I think it's useful to take a step back and examine, in the simplest terms, what the Republicans are doing here: they are attempting to sabotage the American democratic process because it's inconvenient for their candidates.

Of course these robo-calls are only one manifestation of a consistent theme, but when I approach the calls without the cynicism of a political news junkie, I find them breathtakingly despicable. The people behind this aren't schoolyard bullies, or even college kids. These are adults with years of political experience and a comprehensive understanding of what exactly their acts amount to. The NRCC simply does not believe that Americans should be able to make informed choices about their representatives in the voting booth. They are perfectly willing to dismantle the democratic process, which cannot function properly when voters are harassed (or even worse, harassed under false pretenses). I think it's fair to say that their behavior in this instance is "profoundly immoral and malevolent," which is how the Oxford English Dictionary describes "evil." Despite our desensitization to these types of transgressions, we cannot afford to take them lightly."

The people who do this are antidemocratic. They don't believe in making their case and letting the voters decide. They don't care about democracy, or citizens' right to choose the candidate who best reflects their views, or fair play or honesty or decency or moral values. They care about power, and they will undermine our democracy before they let the voters pry the reins of power out of their claws.

Comments

[rilkefan]

Really eager to see what anodyne coverage this gets from the NYT et al.

I don't quite get the tactic, though - in one of the races the call starts off saying, "Here's some information about [Democrat X]", at which point the callee is supposed to think that someone is calling on behalf of X?

[Jesurgislac]

Rilke: in one of the races the call starts off saying, "Here's some information about [Democrat X]", at which point the callee is supposed to think that someone is calling on behalf of X?

Yes, and evidently it works.

It likely would for me, too, if I'd just been woken up. The one thing I'd remember, as I fell back into sleep, was the name the caller had used - [Democrat X]. Even if I were wide awake, my usual reaction to robocalls is to put the phone down as soon as I can tell it's a robocall - and again, the thing that would stay with me was the name of the candidate. It certainly wouldn't spontaneously occur to me that the robocaller was funded by the opposing party.

Hilzoy: They care about power, and they will undermine our democracy before they let the voters pry the reins of power out of their claws.

Yes. And by Thursday, we will have heard again that the Republicans have held both houses* - and there will be reports coming in of electoral chicanery, and there will be plenty of people, Democrats and Republicans, to argue that such reports should be ignored (since they certainly won't be investigated by the Republican Party, who are the only party that count) and everyone should concentrate on "the next election". And so it goes again.

*If I'm wrong about this, I'll cheerfully eat crow.

[Slartibartfast]

This is why the answering machine was invented, isn't it?

I've gotten a large number of robocalls about Ric Keller, but not so much all piled in on the eve of the election; rather more spread out over the last few months. None of them claim to be from the local DNC branch, but none of them are, ultimately, complimentary to Keller.

It'd be nice if I could charge for incoming calls. I could always reimburse friends and relatives, while sticking it to telemarketers and political organizations.

[CharleyCarp]

How else can a party truly get a mandate for deceptive governance?

[Jesurgislac]

It'd be nice if I could charge for incoming calls. I could always reimburse friends and relatives, while sticking it to telemarketers and political organizations.

Neat idea. Now if only you were still a member of the kittenmob, I'd suggest this would make a great open thread topic... ;-)

[cleek]

you can't blame the NRCC, after all Family Values are under attack.

i've only received one robocall, from a retired admiral telling me not to vote for ... some Democrat. i guess that confirms that this part of NC doesn't really have any close races.

[KCinDC]

Speaking of deception:

THE PRESIDENT: So when you get home this evening and you're sitting around the table -- anybody here got four kids? (Applause.)

I'll use you as an example. There you are at the table -- you got five, okay. Five, okay. She's got five kids. So when you get home: one, two, three, four, five, times $500. That's $2,500. That's your tax increase if you vote Democrat. That's your tax increase if the Democrats take over the House of Representatives. That $2,500 may not seem like a lot to people in Washington, but it seems like a lot to me and Jim Ryun, and that's why we're going to keep your taxes low.

[russell]

They care about power, and they will undermine our democracy before they let the voters pry the reins of power out of their claws.

I think this is right, and I think it's the fundamental difference between modern-day conservatives and pretty much everyone else.

They are not interested in governance per se. They are not interested in a give and take of points of view. They are not interested in small or weak government.

They are interested in a powerful and unaccountable government which will enforce what they believe is the Right Thing, whether the rest of us want it or not.

They are extraordinarily undemocratic, and unapologetically so.

The only way these folks can be made accountable, at all, is by taking power away from them.

Yes. And by Thursday, we will have heard again that the Republicans have held both houses

I think it's likely that Democrats will see gains in both houses. It's possible, but far from a given, that they will achieve a majority in the House. A majority in the Senate is, I think, unlikely. If they gain a majority in either house, it may not be a commanding one.

Whatever happens, we can be assured that, on November 8, conservatives will be hard at work preparing for 2008.

This is going to go on for a long time.

Thanks -

[cleek]

They are extraordinarily undemocratic, and unapologetically so.

they are soulless. they should really be deported, banished, sent to Devil's Island.

[Jon H]

"since they certainly won't be investigated by the Republican Party, who are the only party that count"

Actually, they might well "investigate", and come up with "solutions" that actually are tuned to depress turnout of Democratic constituencies.

[john miller]

“They are interested in a powerful and unaccountable government which will enforce what they believe is the Right Thing, whether the rest of us want it or not.”
This is, IMHO, pretty accurate. The Republican Party, as presently constituted, has been the enemy of democracy and representative government for the past several years. And this goes beyond dishonest and manipulative attempts such as described in this post, or other voter suppression techniques.
On one level it became evident in the 2000 election in Florida where they went against every principle that the Republican Party has stood for in taking their case to the Supreme Court. And if you think about it, the only reason they would do so is if they felt they would lose a recount. (I am sure that other arguments can be made, but they make little sense to me.)
But it is also apparent in how they have run Congress, refusing proper deliberation of legislation, keeping votes open well past the normal allowed time to bribe members to change their votes, closing down or not allowing the minority to hold hearings, destroying the integrity of the ethics committee, etc.
Cheney even admitted to this in his interview with ABC. It doesn’t matter what the American public thinks, we will continue in Iraq because it is the RIGHT THING to do.
Because they are doing the RIGHT THING the end justifies the means, manipulation, distortion, lies, voter suppression, deceit are all allowed. Otherwise the American public might actually think about what they are voting for or against and kick them out of power. And if that happens, who could lead them to the Promised Land?
Before anybody brings up examples of things that some Democrats have done, let me admit that I do not think all Democrats are pristine and pure. But what we are seeing is a national program, spread across all layers, down to the local level. This is not a series of disconnected, isolated incidents. It is driven from the top.

[Model 62]

Another argument for ditching the landline and going cell-phone only: No phony robo-calls.