Seriously. This is getting silly. Today's was a recording. My kid handed it to me and I heard ". . .need Senator Lieberman more than ever," and punched the hangup key.
And not a single one of these calls has made a bit of difference in my decision. None of them came from a supporter who was interested in hearing my concerns or interacting with me in a non-scripted manner. Not that I want to, mind you, it just seems like that would be something an election pro might think was a good idea. At least the stacks of fliers I've gotten from Lieberman and Lamont and everyone else made some attempt to appeal to me--granted they usually did try to address my greedy/worried side.
But the calls were unbelievable! The very worst call came from Malloy, who's running for CT Governor. It just about pushed me right over to his opposition's camp came yesterday. I blogged about it at myleftnutmeg. But seriously, it was straight out of the Guide to How Not To Win The Hearts and Minds Of Anyone. It was so bad, I thought perhaps it was DeStaphano engaging in some kind of fiendish doubleback campaign to make me hate Malloy.
It started as a poll--absolutely like one of the four political pollsters that have called us in the last month or so--very ordinary unbiased questions delivered by a woman who'd introduced herself as an independent survey type. She asked the usual stuff about my affliations and if I worked for a news organization. Then we moved onto which candidates I would probably vote for.
But then, about five minutes in, the barrage of absolutely bizarre questions start up. How would I respond if I heard . . . .
. . . that John DeStephano lost the city of New Haven a buncha money [insert numbers where necessary, I quickly began to laugh and didn't pay close attention] because of of HUD fraud would it concern you.
And there had to be at least twenty questions. If you heard that John DeStephano's chief of police said that cops made enough money that they could buy their own bulletproof vests. If you heard that John DeStephano supported a mall that would have destroyed the planet earth. If you heard that John DeStephano eats babies.
I can't recall exact wording "concern" "worry" "disturb" but it was followed the usual four: Very Somewhat, Somewhat not, Not at all.
When the survey started up, I had no strong opinion. In fact, I still don't really. But I found the pseudo-survey SO damned annoying and transparent that by the end, the last question was would you be more or less likely to vote for John DeStephano, I had to say Way, way, way more likely.
What a slimely tactic! I have to say the woman who was polling me hadn't lied and must have been independent because I swear as I got amazed and started laughing, she was laughing along with me.
What the HELL are these people thinking? If she'd come right out and said Okay, we think you should know this stuff about DeStephano, I might have listened--in fact I would have But this pretending to be a genuine unbiased poll? It would annoy a saint. Serious bullshit.