GOP Unleashes Massive Wave Of Robo-Calls Tying Obama To Ayers

[jpeyton]

Robo-Call Audio

Text

The McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee launched a massive robocall campaign on Thursday designed to alarm voters about Barack Obama's past association with former radical Bill Ayers. The committee may be violating state law in the process.

The call begins: "Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC," before telling recipients that they "need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."

More remarkable than the message (coming after a presidential debate in which John McCain said he didn't care about a "washed up terrorist") is the reach of the campaign itself. The Huffington Post received dozens of emails from voters who had either received the call or gotten a voice mail with a recording. Reports came from Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, Texas and Maine.

Two readers in Minnesota also reported receiving the call, which could be a violation of that state's laws. Explains Shaun Dakin, CEO & Founder of the National Political Do Not Contact Registry:

"Most robocalls are supposed to have two things, "paid for by X" and a phone number of the group making the call. Most do that. Now, that being said, there are some states that have their own robocall laws and they are much stricter. Minnesota pretty much bans robocalls entirely unless they are introduced by a human voice. And that pretty much never happens because it defeats the point."

The RNC did not immediately return request for comment. Here's audio of the call:

Robo-Call Audio

The majority of responses from the Democratic and independent readers who received the Ayers robocall were sharply (perhaps not surprisingly) negative.

 

[nakedfrog]

Does anybody here actually listen to robo-calls of any sort?

 

[smashp]

I came home to this call on my machine today. Thought it would be some 527. I was shocked when it was from the source

 

[umbrella39]

They know they have lost so all they can do is try and stir up the fringe and keep going with the Muslim/Terrorist angle. Only the dumbest of the dumb fall for this so I guess it really doesn't matter. They are losing far more than they gain with this approach. Only the bottom feeders are eatingthis stuff up.

 

[Lemon law]

I am in Indiana and I am hopefully protected by the much stronger Indian State laws. And I have a phone recorder recording most incoming calls. You can bet your ass, if they try to pull this stunt on me, I will file an official complaint against them if at all possible.

I do not like this kind of robo call crapola, and if the Obama campaign tried a similar stunt, my response would be the same.

 

[Nemesis 1]

It may be illeagal in MN . But we MNs lol at what your saying . I get at least 5 calls a week . NO humans involved.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I wonder if this isn't one of those cases of some radical 527 group pretending to be campaigning for the candidate they're actually against in order to make that candidate look worse. This could well be the work of a Democratic 527 trying to make McCain look like a low-life.

EDIT: And because I don't have a land line phone, I have received exactly zero calls from any political group, telemarketer, or any other idiots. All I've gotten so far was one visit from a Democratic door-knocker.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
I wonder if this isn't one of those cases of some radical 527 group pretending to be campaigning for the candidate they're actually against in order to make that candidate look worse. This could well be the work of a Democratic 527 trying to make McCain look like a low-life.

EDIT: And because I don't have a land line phone, I have received exactly zero calls from any political group, telemarketer, or any other idiots. All I've gotten so far was one visit from a Democratic door-knocker.

The call ends with "Paid For By McCain/Palin 2008 & The RNC".

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
EDIT: And because I don't have a land line phone, I have received exactly zero calls from any political group, telemarketer, or any other idiots. All I've gotten so far was one visit from a Democratic door-knocker.

Was it a robot?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Couldn't they just be lying? I know there were some calls four years ago made at something like 3 AM that claimed to be promoting the Kerry campaign, in order to make people angry at Kerry for waking them up at night.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Couldn't they just be lying? I know there were some calls four years ago made at something like 3 AM that claimed to be promoting the Kerry campaign, in order to make people angry at Kerry for waking them up at night.

It wouldn't be hard to trace the calls, especially when the telco's are routing tens of thousands of these calls across the US.

Who wants to go to federal PMITA prison?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: smashp
I came home to this call on my machine today.

Thought it would be some 527.

I was shocked when it was from the source

Why would anyone be shocked?

Why isn't Obama at Gitmo since he's clearly a Terrist?

How do we have a Terrist running for President?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Couldn't they just be lying? I know there were some calls four years ago made at something like 3 AM that claimed to be promoting the Kerry campaign, in order to make people angry at Kerry for waking them up at night.

It wouldn't be hard to trace the calls, especially when the telco's are routing tens of thousands of these calls across the US.

Who wants to go to federal PMITA prison?

True. Probably those 3AM calls did truthfully say "paid for by blah blah blah" at the end, but most people hung up before they could hear that part and all they heard was "John Kerry woke you up at 3AM tonight."

So... yeah. It's funny, McCain is going all schizo now. In his own personal appearances, he appears to be downplaying these smear attacks, but his own campaign is specifically backing the same attacks he claims to not care about. It would be another matter if it was a 527 group and he could claim to not have control over them.

 

[Genx87]

Not every campaign has the luxury of having mindless drones on the internet spreading the msg.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Not every campaign has the luxury of having mindless drones on the internet spreading the msg.

They've got you, at least.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Genx87
Not every campaign has the luxury of having mindless drones on the internet spreading the msg.

They've got you, at least.

Oh look pot calling the kettle black.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Genx87
Not every campaign has the luxury of having mindless drones on the internet spreading the msg.

They've got you, at least.

Oh look pot calling the kettle black.

And here we have the kettle calling the pot black.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Genx87
Not every campaign has the luxury of having mindless drones on the internet spreading the msg.

They've got you, at least.

Oh look pot calling the kettle black.

And here we have the kettle calling the pot black.

Who are you, the ladle?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Genx87
Not every campaign has the luxury of having mindless drones on the internet spreading the msg.

They've got you, at least.

Oh look pot calling the kettle black.

And here we have the kettle calling the pot black.

Who are you, the ladle?

I don't know. I lost track of this analogy a while back.

 

[DrPizza]

If the election is even close on the 29th, it'll be wonderful to get to see Obama spend 30 minutes defending himself from all these accusations; and McCain will have no means for rebuttal.

 

[SP33Demon]

Maybe McCain missed it, but negativity doesn't sway undecided's. This is turning out to be one of the worst managed campaigns in history. Taking a book out of Bush's fear tactics, typical of Rove. Disgusting.

 

[SP33Demon]

2 GOP Senators denounce McCain's robo-calls.