Stop, hey, what’s that sound? It’s the sound of silence. My phone has stopped ringing.
I got 14 calls Monday, and I was not even home for a good part of the day. After the fourth one I started keeping a tally on a piece of scrap paper just out of curiosity, and that is the data I am about to share with you.
My caller ID also shows 18 missed calls and I only got two voicemail messages so the other 16 were probably political calls that were hangups.
I live in Massachusetts and for most of my voting life I have been registered “unenrolled” which means I can take either primary ballot. I have not taken the Republican ballot since voting for McCain in 2000 to try to stop Dubya, and then I forgot to switch back to unenrolled so I was a registered Republican for a short period of time. I am still on a lot of mailing lists because of McCain. I’m pretty sure that’s how I got on Scott Brown’s phone list in 2010 even though I was registered as a Democrat from 2004 to 2009.
To pay off a bet I lost, I had to give $10 to Mitt Romney in 2012. That put me on a bunch more lists. And when they cross reference with my name on the voting rolls and see I am unenrolled, they think I am an independent voter who might be voting Republicon. So I get lots of interesting calls and mail. Ooo that reminds me I did not open the mailbox on Saturday. I bet it is PACKED with campaign stuff!
Anyway, the 14 calls I answered came in between 3:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Two were robocalls for a downticket race that I basically didn’t even listen to all the way through once I realized the subject of the call was a Republicon.
TEN were Republicon presidential primary calls, which broke down this way:
Two robocalls were along the lines of“Hi! I’m [local Republicon politician I have never heard of] reminding you to remember to vote tomorrow and please vote for Marco Rubio.”
Two robocalls were along the lines of “Hi! I’m [local Republicon politician I have never heard of] reminding you to remember to vote tomorrow and please vote for John Kasich.”
One robocall was “Hi! I’m [conservative political group I had never heard of] reminding you to remember to vote tomorrow and please vote for Ted Cruz.” They probably cross referenced me with Christian bookstore lists and think I am a conservative evangelical LOLOL!
Three of them were automated polls by Conservative Solutions PAC asking a series of “press 1, press 2 etc.” questions that were clearly slanted toward Rubio. I’m not sure why they called three times but as I said I am on a lot of lists. Who would you vote for if the choices were Rubio and Cruz, Rubio and Kasich, Rubio and Trump. Do you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, no opinion, somewhat unfavorable, very unfavorable opinion of [each of the top 4 Rcon candidates]. Do you care more about beating the Democrat or a candidate who shares your values. Questions like that. They have called me at least twice before so I guess it is a tracking poll.
One of them was an automated poll from an independent polling group asking press 1 press 2 questions about Kasich. Since I want to cause trouble, I said nice things about him LOL.
One of them was a live person who read me a script about Kasich. I listened politely while he very quickly read a statement about Ted Cruz being bad and Trump being bad and Rubio being bad and Kasich was da man. At the end he reminded me to vote and then said “Thank you for hearing me out” (I’m not sure whether that was part of the script) and hung up. Very strange.
On the Dem side I got a robocall from Mayor Maaahhty Walsh asking me to vote for Hillary.
At 8:50 I looked at my tally sheet and figured that would be all the calls for the day because most phone banking stops at 9:00 pm (sometimes even earlier). Thirteen calls, an inauspicious number.
Then the phone rang for the last call of the night. A very eager and excited live caller. A woman who sounded as if she were in her early 20s.
Calling for Bernie.
I told her I had just made a donation to help him go over $40 million. I told her I bought buttons on Saturday and gave the extra donation to get the bumper stickers today. I said I was voting for him tomorrow and she could put me down as a “1”, which for you non phone bankers out there means I am a definite yes to support the candidate and there is no possibility that I will change my mind. I was upbeat and energetic with her because as a veteran phone banker I know how affirming it is when you reach a passionate supporter. Then she asked if I knew where my polling place was and I said yes, I never miss an election and I could find my polling place blindfolded. Then she asked if she could put me on a list of people to call back tomorrow to make sure I voted. My heart soared as if it would leap out of my chest. Now THAT’s what I’m talking ‘bout! Old skool politicking. A woman after my own heart! Then we talked briefly about people we knew who were thinking of taking the R ballot to mess with the Rcon primary results. What a great call. A really invigorating five minutes.
When I hung up from her I reviewed my list of 14 calls.
Only one live person for the Rcons and he was reading me a canned script at the speed of light. I was getting better calls a few weeks ago when for some reason I got two fundraising calls from forced birth groups and was able to yank their chain a little, and then a call last week from Emily’s List where I really confused that poor lady.
No calls for Trump, who is way ahead here.
No calls for Carson, who basically is just staying in the race to make Cruz look like a liar for saying he was dropping out after Iowa. Also, grifters gotta grift. His books aren’t going to sell themselves.
A perfunctory effort from HRC who is also ahead here now.
And that one wonderful warm enthusiastic live call from a woman young enough to be my grandchild, where for five minutes we felt like we were changing the world together.
The next candidate who runs on Bernie’s ideas won’t be 74 years old and won’t have the socialist label like a millstone around the neck. But s/he will stand tall on the foundation built by that young woman and me and all the people who gave to the February 29 money bomb.
I’m very excited to vote today!