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ROBO-CALLS
Why The GOP Should Focus More On
A Message Rather Than The Mechanics
The Republicans have been pondering why the Democrats trounced them in November.
According to a January 30 article in the Wall Street Journal, the GOP is focusing more on the mechanics of how to disseminate their "message," rather than actually honing what that message should be.
In other words, if text messaging, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the other online social networking services are so successful for the Democrats, then that must be the course of action the Republicans must copy.
I'm not so sure this is a wise decision by the GOP. I'm of the opinion that you start with a message first, then work on how to communicate it. They shouldn't just glom onto whatever communication service or method happens to be the "latest and greatest."
For instance, a few years ago the GOP decided that automated calling systems were a wonderful way of letting the electorate know about Republican causes and candidates.
They were so cost effective. No need to have big expensive call centers or staffs of volunteers to place call after call to potential voters. Instead they could make one nice recording of an influential celebrity or politician reading a script, copy that on to a computer and let it automatically call a given range of phone numbers. Whenever an actual person or a machine would answer one of these calls, it would play its pre-programmed message.
This communication technology is better known as robo-calls.
To the GOPs way of thinking, it has been a great way to spread their message
For the rest of us -- or at least to me -- it has been a massive irritation.
During the run-up to the last election, my home answering machine was saturated by these highly annoying automated messages promoting Republican causes and candidates.
I don't recall getting a single Democratic robo-call.
Before I go any further, I should tell you that I am not a Republican or a Democrat or belong to any of the fringe parties. I am an independent who is especially annoyed by the continual usage of robo-call technology by the GOP.
And I've had it up to here with these automated messages. That's why I'm giving all prospective candidates and political parties fair warning, right here and right now.
If you ever want my vote during any future election, you will not robo-call me.
If you robo-call me, you won't get my vote, it's as simple as that.
If the Pope is running against Charles Manson for some office, and I get a taped message from a Cardinal on behalf of His Holiness, then Chuck is going to get my vote no matter how much it pains me to vote by that nutty little Nazi.
I've got to stick by my principles and I want this highly annoying technology eradicated from the face of the earth -- or at least this part of Missouri.
I am on the state and federal Do Not Call Lists for a reason. I don't want to be bothered by telemarketers of any kind. I don't want to be called by my bank, my cable company, my phone company, my credit card companies and absolutely not by a politician or on behalf of a politician who I may or may not have voted for.
Robo-calls are an example of why the GOP needs to be very careful about pursuing the communication technology du jour.
The article in the Journal discussed how some of the GOP leadership have several hundred followers on Twitter and one guy had 4000 "friends" on Facebook. The politicians seemed very proud of their accomplishment.
I feel that the GOP leadership needs talked to directly, so all you non-leadership people go read something else while we talk shop. Try picking up a newspaper. They're a wealth of information.
Ok, now that all the plebes are gone, let me explain something that your "Yes-men" and your "Yes-women" and your technical advisors may not be telling you.
The vast majority of the people who are following your Tweets on Twitter or are posing as your Facebook "friends" are suck-ups.
Brown-nosers. Yes-people who wish to stroke your ego. Vendors. People who have something to gain from being your "friend."
It's not the average voter.
Oh sure, Obama has 5,639,315 Facebook "friends" at the time of this writing and a lot of them are grass-roots activists who truly believe in his message of "change." But let's be honest, the guy has bucket-loads of charisma that appeals to a broad spectrum of the population. For better or worse, I haven't seen any current candidates in the GOP who approaches his level.
And please don't bring up Sarah. During the last election she inspired the "base", the straight-ticket Republican voters you already had. If you don't think the average voter wasn't seriously -- and still isn't seriously -- concerned with her qualifications for leading this country or being one heart-beat away from the presidency, I think you might be wrong.
But I digress.
While the mechanics of communication are important, having a message with actual innovative solutions to our nation's problems is more critical. And I personally will gladly evaluate them for myself.
You may publish this information in a newspaper or mail them to me or discuss them in detail on one of the TV news shows. You can even email them to me. Hopefully my spam filter doesn't snare them.
You can even post them on your Facebook account. I won't look at it there -- that's not my thing -- but your "yes-people" will probably appreciate it.
But don't even think about robo-calling me to let me know about the newspaper article or to tell me "to watch my mail" or to tune in to a given channel at a given time or to make sure to check my email account.
Because you know where I stand on that matter and you know my solution.
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