I was listening to Larry Elder (man, he is ripping Aaron McGruder a new one the size of the Holland Tunnel! Thing is, I tuned in too late to find out what McGruder really said, and I can’t find anything on the net or the news.) a little while ago. Some guy called in to say, “I just got a call from Hillary Clinton, telling me to vote for Gray Davis!”
Huh? thought I. I thought Elder screened out all the jokers.
About five minutes ago by now, the phone rings and I answer. Silence for a second, then, before I can hang up, a recording starts up: “Hi, I’m Hillary Clinton. Two years ago the Democrats lost the Presidency by a [?]…” (I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember exactly how she worded it. But she did appear to be blaming the loss on too few votes, and not on hanging chads or the Supreme Court.)
Anyway, she, or at any rate the recording, went on to urge me to vote for Gray Davis and some other Dem. “We can’t risk another heartbreak.”
So how many degrees does that put between us? If you count the person who recorded her voice, the person who made copies for the autodialers, and the person who activated the one that called me, that would be three. Unless there are other people I should acknowledge…
I got a (recorded) call from her too. It went like this: “Hi, this is Senator Hillary Clin[click].” I live in California too so it may well have been about the Governor’s race.
I’m only a couple of degrees away from her in real life because my step-brother knows George Bush I.
You guys ain’t nothin’! I got a call from ** Jimmy Buffett**. He wanted to instruct me about who to vote for in the Alabama Governor’s race. Do we detect a trend here? I already get enough junk calls, without the pols getting in the act.
What??? Your gov’t calls you up and plays you recorded messages, when you’ve made the effort to stop what you were doing and answer the phone… to a message!
Christ, I’d be furious if ANYONE did that… I’m off to the PIT.
Jeez. What is the world coming to (mutter mutter)
Yeah, the Republicans are using this tactic in the MA governor’s race, too. I got a call yesterday from Rudy Giuliani urging me to vote for Mitt Romney. I’m registered as “unenrolled” (i.e., no party affiliation), which may have something to do with it, as it’s a particularly tight race.
Years ago when I was living in California many households received similar calls from Ronald Reagan telling them to vote for the Republican candidate (can’t remember who or for which office).
And I even saw George Will on TV saying what an obnoxious tactic that was.
My husband answered the phone the other day while I was in the tub. He laughed and called up to me “It’s Martin Sheen!” I said “I told him not to call me here!”
There’s also a radio spot running with Robert Redford telling us to vote for Mike Honda (Handa? I forget) because of his good environmental record. That’s not as funny as getting called at home though.
Oh, but I did get a letter from James Carville asking me to donate to the W.J. Clinton library. That really made me chuckle. I love Bill and all, but a LIBRARY!!! C’mon…how about a presidential Dave & Busters or something?
I got a (recorded) call from Dubya Thursday. I don’t know what it was about because I hung up on him.
I’d rather get a call from Jimmy Buffet. I might want to talk to him.
He wanted to instruct me about who to vote for in the Alabama Governor’s race. Do we detect a trend here? I already get enough junk calls, without the pols getting in the act.