Will Robo-Calls Work?

Only if you are a pathetic moron.

Two Republican senators facing reelection battles in states also seeing presidential campaign attention are speaking out against anti-Obama robocalls from John McCain’s campaign and the RNC.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins expressed her dispeasure first on Friday.

“They don’t serve John McCain well,” Collins told PolitickerME. “This kind of campaign call does not reflect the kind of leader that he is.”

And today Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign issued a blanket statement condemning negative ads and phone calls.

“I call on Al Franken, the DNC, the RNC, the DSCC, the NRSC and any other organization engaged in negative attacks on any candidate to bring them to an immediate end,” Coleman said in the statement.

Asked if this included McCain’s campaign, Coleman spokesman Luke Friedrich replied:  “The senator is calling on everyone.”

On Fox News Sunday, whose transcript the Obama campaign just sent reporters, McCain was forced to defend himself from the charge of hypocrisy for waves of negative robocalls. It’s a mark of how the public fascination with this race has made issues of process — robocalls are a tactic meant to go under the radar — instantly front and center.

WALLACE: But Senator back, if I may, back in 2000 when you were the target of robo calls, you called these hate calls and you said–

MCCAIN: They were.

WALLACE: And you said the following: “I promise you I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic.” Now you’ve hired the same guy who did the robo calls against you to, reportedly, to do the robo calls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robo calls. Will you do that?

MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that — things that this is — this is dramatically different and either you haven’t — didn’t see those things in 2000.

MCCAIN: Or you don’t know the difference between that and what is a legitimate issue, and that is Senator Obama being truthful with the American people. But let me tell you what else I think you should be talking about and the American people should be talking about. In the debate the other night, I asked Senator Obama to repudiate a statement made by John Lewis, a man I admire and respect and have written about that connected me and Sarah Palin —
WALLACE: This is the congressman, civil rights leader.

MCCAIN: Civil rights leader, American hero. That connected me and Sarah Palin to segregationists, to the campaign of George Wallace, and even alluded to the bombing of a church where four children, four children were killed, and I asked him to repudiate that statement. I have repudiated every statement made by any fringe person in the Republican Party. And it has come up from time to time, and it probably will. The fact that Senator Obama would not repudiate that statement I think is something the American people will make a judgment about. That robo call is accurate. It’s totally accurate

Apparently there are negative and positive negatives in McCain’s little corner of the realm of reality

2 thoughts on “Will Robo-Calls Work?

  1. I think “This kind of campaign” meaning slander instead of good policies, exactly represents what kind of leader McCain would be. Imagine the hate he could inspire as president! I view the GOP (Republican Party) robo calls and slander as kind of like the movie “The Exorcist” where priests throw holy water on a demon and it spits out vile obscenities. I think the Republican party has long been ruled by greed and corruption, and I think the recent slander and obscenities spouted by the RNC are just a testament to their lack of integrity. Now that “we the people” have an opportunity to finally have a president that represents the American people, the republican party despises it and will try anything to prevent it. I would expect no less from a group that is ruled by corruption and greed. I hope the American people are finally able to get a representative in government by making Barack Obama president.

  2. O agree with you 100%….but I question the sanity of the American voter at times…..we can only do our part to try and make them see what is what. Thanx for the comment

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