The Union Of Politics And Telemarketing -- What's Not To Like?

Robocalls -- those recorded, automatically dailed phone messages -- have been lighting up phones everywhere the past few days. Nobody seems to like getting them. Some are innocuous -- the standard fare of campaigns and candidates. But then there are underhanded, unaccountable calls meant to confuse voters.

For example, calls have been going out into Virginia and Pennsylvania telling people to vote tomorrow, on Nov. 5, according to Jonah Goldman, director of Election Protection at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. Goldman says he doesn't know who's responsible, but similar misleading messages are being distributed via email, FaceBook and flyers, often targeting young and minority voters.

A third kind of robocall comes from independent groups trying to influence your vote. The Republican Jewish Coalition, for example, is sending anti-Obama robocalls to Jewish voters. The call quotes Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) saying that Obama lacked the "political courage" to leave Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. The RJC labels the United Church of Christ congregation "anti-Semitic" and "anti-American." The call hammers home the point with this: "If Obama doesn't have the courage to do the right thing here at home, can he stand up to dictators and tyrants who seek to do us harm? We should all be concerned about Barack Obama."

The National Political Do Not Call Registry tracks all sorts of robocalls -- and lets you report them.

Christina Perkins, of eastern Virginia, told us she got her first robocall last week, and was a bit taken aback. The call, she says, started out asking if she is a registered voter, without identifying who wanted to know. The second question, "Are you pro-life?" struck Perkins as "sort of out of left field."

She answered, "No," to which the robocall replied by saying that Obama would "raise your taxes by almost $3,000." Does that change your mind about Obama, the call asked? Perkins said, "No," and the message concluded by saying the group that sponsored it was in support of John McCain.

Perkins couldn't remember the exact name of the group, but we traced it back to Christian conservative leader, one-time presidential hopeful and former Reagan advisor Gary Bauer.

Bauer, who heads Americans United to Preserve Marriage and the group American Values, hired ccAdvertising to do the calls in Virginia, said his spokeswoman, Kristi Hamrick. Hamrick said Bauer also ran some get-out-the-vote radio ads in battleground states.

Hamrick said she wasn't sure which Bauer organization paid for the robocalls But it appears to be Americans United to Preserve Marriage. Let's check out the group's funding after the jump...

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1:35 PM ET | 11- 4-2008 | permalink

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