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Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Last-minute robo-call blast from Romney: Huckabee and McCain in cahoots
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In an indication that this Republican primary race will remain tight through the night, we’ve got a Cobb County home that at 6:10 p.m. received a robo-call from the Mitt Romney campaign, referencing the James Dobson condemnation on the Laura Ingraham radio program. (Click here for previous post).
The phone message, sent out a mere 50 minutes before polls closed, quoted Dobson, founder of the evangelical Focus on the Family organization:
‘I’m deeply disappointed the Republican party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.”
This seems like a good place to remind readers that, at least technically, McCain is a former sailor.
And we just we just got a phone call from the national Romney campaign, giving us the script of another automated telephone they’re putting out in Georgia.
Click here for the sound.
The last-minute blast — the campaign won’t tell us how many households it will hit — accuses John McCain and Mike Huckabee of collusion, and appears to be referencing this blog posting by Jim Wooten.
Here’s the script:
“Mike Huckabee and John McCain have joined forces to insure that the conservative agenda gets derailed during today’s primary voting. In fact the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that today’s convention vote in West Virginia was reminiscent back to the days of “smoke filled rooms and backroom deals” when McCain threw his votes to Huckabee in order to stop Mitt Romney from winning.
“In fact, the Journal-Constitution said ‘Huckabee is the spoiler. He has no chance of getting the nomination, but he’s certainly useful to McCain — as today’s alliance indicates.’
“Don’t let liberal John McCain and Mike Huckabee beat conservative values. Vote for the real conservative- Mitt Romney.”
Now, out of fairness, we need to note that Mitt Romney blew through Atlanta on Monday, and had this message for Huckabee, who was complaining of rough treatment. “No whining,” Romney said.
Ratings on Clinton’s town hall meeting delayed until after Super Tuesday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve picked up some e-mail traffic indicating that Nielsen has delayed the release of yesterday’s national cable overnight ratings “due to an issue loading necessary reference data updates.”
The numbers are to be released at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Which means we won’t know how many people tuned in to Hillary Clinton’s town hall meeting on the Hallmark channel until after Super Tuesday.
Conspiracy theorists are having a ball with the topic.
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Leslie has a crush on Obama too
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Have you already watched all of the Barack Obama tribute videos on YouTube? Seen all the stunts and songs?
Well, folks from Atlanta have contributed a number of tributes of their own, including a three-video series on Obama’s wife, Michelle, speaking in Georgia.
But here’s one we came across featuring Leslie, a “mostly stable mom” from the ATL, who skips the traditional testimonial for a song and dance number.
Leslie did err in describing Obama’s record on the Iraq war. But she corrected the mistatement in a second video.
Leslie reassures viewers that her video isn’t intended to put down Obama’s chief competitor in today’s 20-plus state primaries, Hillary Clinton. Still, the only thing she said about Hillary was a line from “Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne: “She’s like so whatever, you can do so much better.”
Talk radio goes after McCain; James Dobson says if McCain wins, he won’t vote
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With presidential primaries rolling toward evening rush-hour, much of conservative talk radio — led by Rush Limbaugh — has convulsed at the thought of John McCain as the Republican nominee, and is pushing its listeners to Mitt Romney.
The Romney campaign has just put out this YouTube link to this morning’s broadcast by Laura Ingraham, heard in Atlanta on WGKA (920AM), in which Ingraham reads a statement damning McCain by James Dobson, leader of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family.
In part, the statement reads:
“But what a sad and melancholy decision this is for me and many other conservatives. Should Sen. McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime.
“I certainly can’t vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life.”
We don’t think radio guru Neal Boortz in Atlanta — whose conservatism can’t exactly be called orthodox — joined in the McCain bashing. You can read his comments here.
Evans on long voting lines: ‘We can’t think this is a good sign for November’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Election Board member Randy Evans, who earlier expressed concerns about a lack of poll workers today, had this to say to our colleague Ben Smith about the long lines being reported:
“When Walmart sees lines, it will consider the possibility that it does not have enough cashiers. As we now see lines at the polls in Georgia, unacceptably long lines on a primary day (as opposed to the general election) with a very short ballot, we can’t think this is good sign for November. It is not enough to be thankful that voters showed up. Instead, there needs to be an active effort to accommodate the large numbers of voters who do show up so that they will be more inclined to come back again.”
More on robo-calls: What Hillary’s saying, and how she might know your name
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With so many states and money spread so thin, it’s no wonder that Georgia is swimming in automated phone calls.
A reader has kindly sent us sound from a robo-call originating with the Hillary Clinton campaign. Click here to listen.
Judging from the message, the campaign might be worried that their supporters might give into predictions of a Barack Obama win in Georgia - and perhaps wander into a Republican booth.
“It’s going to close, and I need your help,” Clinton says.
Also, in an earlier post, we wondered about a Mitt Romney robo-call that addressed voters by their first names. A Republican operative, who asked to remain anonymous, sent this explanation:
“It is a relatively new technology in politics that started back in 2006.
“I tested it when I was at the [place he worked]. Basically, the caller records around 540 common names (yes, one at a time) and it is supposed to match up with about 80 to 85 percent of the voter file. You can include several rotated messages, like a name, time of the call (like Romney did saying, “Monday afternoon”), county, and issues targeted toward that particular voter.
“Depending on how many interchangeable sections you have in the call, they tend to cost 10 times the cost of an ordinary 40-50 second auto-call. However, if you can afford them, they penetrate a few percentages more because the personalized message, name, issue, location, etc. supposedly catches your attention.
“These typically work well when you have a micro-targeting project on voters’ issue preferences.
“I recorded over 500 names, 7 days with three time periods each, 15 cities, and five individual issues for our test. It took me about an hour and a half to record everything and it sliced together very well just like your Romney call.”
About those NRA contributions …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Someone in the state Capitol took the trouble to send us a spreadsheet of all the money the National Rifle Association has handed out to state lawmakers and others this cycle.
The total came to $22,750, given to 20 senators, 13 House members, one lieutenant governor and a state attorney general.
Here’s the thing: The Senate conferees on H.B. 89, the NRA-backed gun bill to end all gun bills, are Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour of Snellville, Ronnie Chance of Tyrone, and Joseph Carter of Tifton.
None of them are listed as having received a dime from the NRA.
Oops.
