Cross posted at my blog at StopPoliticalCalls.org.
Got your attention. This is NOT real, yet.
This week I attended an event at the New Politics Institute and was lucky enough to ask Joe Trippi a question about the outsourcing of American politics to technology, especially robo calls. He said that he agreed and that he hated them.
After his talk I had a chance to talk about the robo call issue with Simon Rosenberg, the head of the New Democratic Network, and he mentioned that he was concerned that the GOP was going to play the race card this Fall. John McCain won't, himself, but the unafiliated groups, 527's, will. They are outside most regulation and can raise unlimited amounts of money from undocumented sources.
Bottom line: They do the dirty work in American politics and there is very little that can be done to stop them.
To be clear, both sides have 527's and both sides use them to allow the candidates to stay above the fray while these unaffiliated groups work the issues from the gutter.
In my discussion with Simon I mentioned that my fear for the Fall will be that 527's will unleash a barrage of robo calls across the nation, but particularly into battle ground states and districts that will use the Rev. Wright sermons that we have all seen played endlessly on TV and the Internet.
One does not have to give much thought to a robo call that simply starts with the following quote from Rev. Wright:
"God Damn America".
Here is that sermon on an ABC news story that is now on YouTube. Can you imagine what the reaction will be from white americans having this sermon (and others like it) broadcast down their phone lines again and again and again?
I hope that Simon and I are wrong. I fear, however, that we are right on the money.