Tuesday, November 04, 2003
PHONE SPAM? Came home from lunch today to find a message from President Bush on my answering machine. Dubya urged me to get out and vote and support the “Republican team.” Shortly thereafter the phone rang again and I answered to find another recorded message. This one was from Robert Stuber, the Republican candidate for state senate in Virginia’s 17th district. He, too, urged me to vote and of course support his effort to keep taxes low and help our schools. It boggles the mind to consider that these types of impersonal recorded messages might actually change anyone’s mind. How many people really say “I wasn’t going to vote today until the President told me how important it was” or “I was determined to vote for the Democrat until I heard this recorded message that completely changed my mind.” I suppose that tactics like these are akin to e-mail spam: the vast majority of the recipients will tune them out and delete the message, but if only one in a thousand responds, it is worth the effort since the distribution of recorded messages is essentially free.
I received a call from a real live Stuber booster a few days ago. After listening to her recitation of her candidate’s opposition to taxes and support for education and transportation, I asked her which issue was Stuber’s top priority. In other words, if money were tight (as it often is) and one couldn’t choose both holding the line on taxes and increasing spending on schools and roads, which would Stuber more strongly support. She didn’t have an answer but promised that someone would get back to me. Lo and behold, yesterday my wife got a call from the candidate himself. I was at work so she gave him my office number. He called, left a message and gave me his home phone number. I reached him later in the day. His initial reply to my query was that of the typical politician who doesn’t want to say no to anyone: given the signs of economic recovery and Governor Warner’s placing of priority on education, chances are we can have both less taxes and increased funding for schools and roads. When I pushed him on the issue, he declared that if he had to choose, he would hold the line on taxes. Fair enough. I have to say that I appreciated his candor and was more than a little impressed that he would bother to call an individual voter on the day before election day (further reflection raised the possibility that it was because he was so far behind that there wasn’t much hope in staging last-minute rallies and events. Who knows?).
Will I vote for him? All other things equal, my default position is to prefer fewer taxes for both personal mercenary and ideological reasons. However, I don’t much care for Stuber’s making the Pledge of Allegiance and his opponent’s alleged opposition to the reciting of the Pledge in schools a centerpiece of his campaign (such allegations appear to be misleading at best). I think that the Pledge is a red herring that distracts from real issues and don’t take kindly to misrepresentation of opponents’ views and records on the campaign trail. On the other hand, the incumbent Edd Houck, has also circulated campaign literature making dubious assertions about his opponent (and not-so-subtly highlighting the fact that Stuber isn’t going to appear on the cover of GQ any time soon). What to do? Well, I have a couple of hours before I go to the polls to make up my mind. Rather scary this democracy stuff.
I received a call from a real live Stuber booster a few days ago. After listening to her recitation of her candidate’s opposition to taxes and support for education and transportation, I asked her which issue was Stuber’s top priority. In other words, if money were tight (as it often is) and one couldn’t choose both holding the line on taxes and increasing spending on schools and roads, which would Stuber more strongly support. She didn’t have an answer but promised that someone would get back to me. Lo and behold, yesterday my wife got a call from the candidate himself. I was at work so she gave him my office number. He called, left a message and gave me his home phone number. I reached him later in the day. His initial reply to my query was that of the typical politician who doesn’t want to say no to anyone: given the signs of economic recovery and Governor Warner’s placing of priority on education, chances are we can have both less taxes and increased funding for schools and roads. When I pushed him on the issue, he declared that if he had to choose, he would hold the line on taxes. Fair enough. I have to say that I appreciated his candor and was more than a little impressed that he would bother to call an individual voter on the day before election day (further reflection raised the possibility that it was because he was so far behind that there wasn’t much hope in staging last-minute rallies and events. Who knows?).
Will I vote for him? All other things equal, my default position is to prefer fewer taxes for both personal mercenary and ideological reasons. However, I don’t much care for Stuber’s making the Pledge of Allegiance and his opponent’s alleged opposition to the reciting of the Pledge in schools a centerpiece of his campaign (such allegations appear to be misleading at best). I think that the Pledge is a red herring that distracts from real issues and don’t take kindly to misrepresentation of opponents’ views and records on the campaign trail. On the other hand, the incumbent Edd Houck, has also circulated campaign literature making dubious assertions about his opponent (and not-so-subtly highlighting the fact that Stuber isn’t going to appear on the cover of GQ any time soon). What to do? Well, I have a couple of hours before I go to the polls to make up my mind. Rather scary this democracy stuff.
