As you may know by now, the National Republican Campaign Committee is making a Hail Mary play by harrassing Democratic-leaning voters with automated calls structured with a misleading introduction that suggests that Democrats are responsible for the call. The kicker is: if you hang up, the robocall firm then calls you back several more times with the same message, often at horrendous hours. It’s classic slimeball Republican skullduggery: harrass the opposition’s voters to suppress the vote (or worse, flip it). Unfortunately, the scheme has flown under the radar until the last few days (when Josh Marshall helped break the story), so it could be effective. However, in many states, calls such as these are illegal, and DailyKos diarist G2geek has an excellent diary up on ways to fight back against the Republican Party. New Hampshire’s Attorney General has already put a partial stop to the problem there.
The DCCC has a press release condemning the tactics here, including information on how the $600,000 worth of attack calls were allocated in the past week.
The R’s are putting every dirty trick into play right now. print pieces that look like they came from Dems and mis-state candidates positions, push polling from out of state. Threats and accusations. I am sure tomorrow there will even be phone attacks on headquarters.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. They are frightened of loss of power but more frightened of oversight of King George.
Over here:
http://take19.blogsp…
We have been hearing that people have been called in some instances 8 times before the calls finally stopped.
When you hangup, they call back over and over every 15 minutes or so until you listen to the entire message.
It is effective since people in the district are pissed and think its comming from the Hall campaign.
— MrMacMan
they can be held to account under the justice system. This is such a low life move and I would think that it would be against the law in all cases. If it isn’t then when we get some control it should be a priority to make it illegal.
Clearly, we shouldn’t be surprised that Republicans are pulling all kinds of dirty tricks, including robocalls in the middle of the night claiming to be from the Democratic candidate.
This is what the Republicans do. Every election.
So we should be prepared. No more, “Oh dear. The Republicans aren’t playing by the Marquess of Queensbury rules. We were hoping that they had reformed. Oh dear!” No more resignation. No more letters requesting that they knock it off, which they evade and ignore.
The DNCC should have a team of lawyers to work with each Democratic candidate, and each campaign should warn its workers and supporters about what is coming starting about a week before election day. It should be SOP that we gather evidence rapidly, then
1) Seek injunctions in court;
2) Show up at the robocall center if it’s id’d (eg, the current one being used by the NRCC in Richmond to picket and draw media;
3) Inform relevant state and federal authorities and demand investigations;
4) Sue in relevant civil courts.
5) In severe cases, be prepared to run TV ads focusing on the tactic, making it clear that the calls are not from the Democratic candidate, and that a desparate and dishonest Republican Party is behind them.
Each response should be seen as a way to focus media and therefore public attention on the Republican dirty tricks, even if such lawsuits, etc. might not be ultimately successful under current law. At a minimum, we can make many voters aware that the calls are not from our candidate. At a maximum we can stop them and perhaps get some fines levied on the Republicans.