Just got an odd robocall from a zombie identifying himself as "Louisiana Priorities" who proceeded to tell me how terrible Mary Landrieu is, how she's printing money like there's no tomorrow and making everything cost more for average people like me.
The call ended by repeating, "This has been a message from Louisiana Priorities 504-229-5713."
Never having heard of "Louisiana Priorities" before (despite being something of a PAC rat and Koch-hunter), and curious at the similarity of the group's name to the state division of the Democratic superPAC ("Louisiana Priorities USA Action"), I decided to try to find out more about their fine organization.
Google "Louisiana Priorities." Nothing. No Facebook presence. Hmmm.
I called the number and the call was bumped to a voicemail box for something called "The Center for Internal Research," a very intriguing and Orwellian-sounding title. Google again. Nothing. Hmmm again.
So I pulled a reverse lookup--common free service, which many phone owners don't think to block--and learned that this number isn't registered to an organization at all, but an individual, who lives in a suburban neighborhood in Kentwood, LA (not Kenner, as the caller ID claimed). A couple more lookups yielded a middle name, a street address, an email address, any number of details about the person whose phone was used to robocall under the name of a political organization that doesn't exist.
I find this all a bit curious. Is this person (and her male-voiced confederate) an unregistered PAC?
Perhaps she's just a lone wolf doing a little DIY work for a cause she believes in, something I indulge in quite a bit myself. One difference, though.
When you see one of my political ads, the closing message is always, "Louie Ludwig is the creator of this ad and is solely responsible for its content." That way, I don't have to spend money starting an LLC or time and hassle registering a PAC, which I presume is the legal way to go about political advertising anonymously.
I'm hardly an expert in campaign finance law (what there is left of it, thanks to Mr. Scalia and friends), but this strikes me as just a shade less than legit.
I'd be very curious to hear the opinions of people better versed than I in this field.
Oh, and by the way, the owner of that number, which was provided to me in the recorded message, still hasn't had the sense to block it from reverse lookups. Feel free to meet her, should you desire.
