If it’s 3 a.m., it’s a robo-call “for” Page
The last-minute anonymous robo-call attacks targeting state Rep. Sam Page, a Democrat running for lieutenant governor, intensified over the weekend — with a new twist.
Page’s campaign says it has been receiving reports of 3 a.m. robo-calls “pretending to be in support of Sam Page… as much as nine times to the same number.”
Such calls obviously make the victims angry, and are aimed at getting them mad enough so they won’t vote for Page on Tuesday, he said.
“This allows cowards to hide and this is why voters are losing faith in our electoral system,” Page said. “I apologize to all who are the victims of this hoax.”
The Missouri Republican Party and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Republican, have both denied any involvement in the anonymous robo-call blitz. State law doesn’t require such calls to identify who’s paying for them, unlike fliers and TV and radio ads.
Kinder is running anti-Page radio ads. A earlier version of the robo-calls had a similar script.
In any case, Page said he doesn’t believe the GOP denials.
“A dear Republican friend called to apologize,” Page said. “He assured me that this isn’t the real Republican Party; unfortunately the dirty-trick wing has taken control, but not for too much longer.
“I hope that is true. This kind of corruption could bring down a great civilization.”
This is perhaps the most pathetic thing I have ever heard of. I never imagined Rove himself would get personally involved in a seemingly meaningless state-wide race, but it has happened. I honestly cannot believe the level of corruption that the Blunt-Kinder administration will sink to in order to retain power.
Ken Jacob and Steve Gaw are doing similar things in the 9th District Congressional primary. Someone even said he was getting robocalls at 9am on a Sunday morning and another said he was getting calls from a “Democratic representative” at 10:45pm.
Sam Page should win Tuesday. And he gets my vote in November. I’ve voted primarily Republican for years, but my mind was made up with Kinder’s attack ad. A guy who wants to advertise against someone in the other party’s primary tells me that man is desperate. And if Kinder is that desperate as an incumbent to run such an ad, then he’s obviously pretty weak. All this for the Lieutenant Goveror office? Peter Kinder must not have better things to do.
“State law doesn’t require such calls to identify who’s paying for them, unlike fliers and TV and radio ads.”
Perhaps it is time to change the law to include such calls. Then again, telemarketers still seem to not be able to follow the “No Call” law/list. Thus, it might be an exercise in futility.
Please know that the leading candidate for the Democratic spot for Missouri’s Lieutenant Governor, Michael E. Carter, ceased robo calls on July 20, 2008 as part of our overall communications push.
Michael E. Carter is sorry to hear of these “apparent” Republican dirty tactics.
Please call us with any questions.
Chad Carter
chad@vote4carter.com
http://www.vote4carter.com
314-591-0169
Why does the Post assume, based upon nothing but speculation, that this is a “Republican dirty trick”? As somebody with substantial expertise in installing and configuring Asterisk-based auto-dialers, I can tell you that an inexperienced person could easily goof it up and have calls being made at 3 am. Considering that many people have caller id, intentionally doing this would be inconceivably stupid. That’s why I suspect it was probably just a programming error on the part of whoever was doing this for the Page campaign. Of course, the person who made the mistake probably didn’t tell Page. And even if he did, Page isn’t going to go public with it. But shame on the Post for reporting this deflection of responsibility as though it were hard news.
Hey Nick, another day, another claim of anti- repub media bias. You are like a one trick pony. Where does it say that the Post states that it is a dirty republican trick, this claim comes from Page and his repub friend. Also, these calls come up as unavailable so there is no way to trace, neat huh? I would bet that when these calls are put together that the person responsible would double check to see what time they are supposed to go out. Besides if it was meant to go out at three P.M. this also seems like a pointless time to have calls go out on a Sunday, in other words I’ll bet the calls went out exactly when they were supposed to.
“truth” - If you don’t think it would be easy to accidentally do something like this, you obviously have never worked with an auto-dialer. And if you think the Page campaign would say, “Ooops, we accidentally woke up hundreds of people in the middle of the night,” then you haven’t been around politics very long.
Meanwhile, the Post story is based upon anonymous heresay from a campaign worker who has a strong interest in smearing his opponent. Of course, the Post looks right past the guy who is running against Page in Tuesday’s election, somebody who has made a big deal about using auto-dialers, and assumes it was Peter Kinder’s doing.
But the best part is this: “This kind of corruption could bring down a great civilization.” Are you kidding me? Even if this was intentional, I’d hardly say it could bring down even a mediocre civilization. If that’s Page’s reaction to such trivia, I hate to think of how he’ll react when faced with a REAL crisis.
Laughable. Democrats are so scared at this point they’ll say anything. And way to go to Dispatch - “reporting” on bogus and unsubstantiated rumors like they were hard facts. There is no “connection” between the MO Republican Party, Kinder, or anyone else. Way to blatantly jump to conclusions and automatically attack Republicans as the source of these calls. This is just another pathetic example of how in the tank you guys are for the Left. Sad.