I have reposted with an update. McCain is still working for voters in Indiana. --Allenfire
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I am a registered Republican here in Indiana, but I can proudly say that I no longer consider myself a member of the party. There are several reasons why this is so, but the biggest ones being my disdain for the Bush administration, the inspiration of Sen. Obama that I found late last year, and lastly, the most intelligent site I have ever found on the net -- Daily Kos...!
So because I am on the GOP's calling list, I may get a call or two just before each election cycle from the party. Now I have never donated any money to the GOP, nor have I ever been active with any Republican campaign. That said, I have now done both of these things to help get Sen. Obama elected as our next President...!
Well surprisingly, I got a call today from the McCain campaign. Rather than tell the caller immediately that I was supporting Sen. Obama, I had a different plan.
It caught me off guard to get the call, but I decided to take advantage of it. The caller, a youthful sounding southerner who was very polite, initially asked me if I had been following the presidential election. Now, at first he didn't identify himself as being with the McCain campaign, but I had immediately concluded that he had to be because he didn't come off like the confident and energetic supporters that have called me from the Obama campaign.
Being a little surprised to get a canvasing call so early from the McCain campaign, I decided that the callers time was better spent talking to me rather than making calls to other people on the GOP's call list.
I told the caller that I was undecided, but I wanted to vote for McCain, but that I had too many reservations about him and Sarah Palin. He asked me what they were, so I threw out the no-brainers about how Gov. Palin's political views were unknown. He responded with the typical talking points that we have all been hearing about her extensive executive experience. After some back and forth letting him make his silly and convoluted case, I moved on to other topics such as McCain's record... and then to the contradicitons between his views and Palin's... and then onto social issues... and the environment... and then the economy... the war... blah blah blah blah blah... After a while, it was clear that this guy was part of the extreme Christian Right, who was very energized about her stand on abortion and creationism in schools.
But then came the funniest part of the whole conversation. When I voiced my concern over Russia threatening Georgia, the caller, a bit confused about current events, thought that I was referring to the state of Georgia, which led him to saying that Sarah was the Governor of Alaska, which he reminded me actually borders Russia, unlike the state of Georgia. Sadly, I am not making any of this up.
So after leading the caller around and around to hear his answers to quell my "indicision" with McCain, I told him that he was making some very good points, and that I would like to receive more calls from others in the campaign as soon as possible to help me to decide.
So 59 minutes later, I hung up my phone, able to get back to my now cold dinner. Those are 59 minutes that I will never get back, but neither will McCain...! I can't wait for my follow up calls so that I can waste more of their time...!
Let the State of Georgia no longer be threatened by Russia if McCain / Palin win the white house....!
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UPDATE 1: So tonight I received my follow up call! It ended up being the same guy who had called me before. I was a little preoccupied with a couple of projects around the house, but decided to see if I could squeeze out some more time from the McCain campaign! I asked him how the canvasing had been going, and he said that he has been calling from a list of registered Republicans in Indiana. He assured me that Indiana would likely be the state that would decide this election, and that I needed to get all of my friends and family out to vote in November (which of course I will, with a total of about 9 votes for Obama!). Towards the end of the conversation, I told him that I was still undecided, but that I would like to talk to him some more after the first debate. So... by the time I hung up, I had contributed another 24 minutes of my valuable time to the McCain campaign...! Hmmmm... will I get that third call???
UPDATE 2: I just wanted to point out the most important point made by JR when I had first posted this diary, permalinked here (I truncated the quote a bit to highlight the most relevant point):
Guys, take the real lesson from this story: (4+ / 0-)
JOHN MCCAIN IS DOING VOTER ID CALLS IN INDIANA
He thinks the state is at risk of swinging, and his operation is now at a point where they can make ID calls to registered Republicans...
by JR on Sat Sep 06, 2008 at 09:46:51 PM PDT