Why I hate election season

[mojosmom]

I was sitting at my computer, minding my own business, when the phone rang. No, it wasn't a robo-call! It was a real live person, claiming to be from "Governor Quinn's office". First red flag: it's a no-no to make campaign calls on the state's dime, and one would expect "I'm calling from the Pat Quinn for Governor campaign". He asks me if I know about early voting, and I say "yes", but that I haven't voted yet. Then he asks me if I'm going to vote for Governor Quinn. Another red flag. That's not how campaigns usually phrase the question. I say, "I haven't decided yet who I'm going to vote for." And he says "Fantastic!" and hangs up.

How much does anyone want to bet that this call was from Quinn's Republican opponent?

Too bad he didn't stay on the phone long enough for me to tell him that I couldn't decide between Quinn and the Green Party candidate, and that the Republican wouldn't get my vote if he were the only candidate in the race!

Had to laugh, though, because when I called Quinn's campaign office to tell them I though someone was pulling dirty tricks, they asked me "what number did the call come from?" How startled were they when I said that I don't have caller ID!

Comments

[resqgeek]

I guess the silver lining of living where I do is that I'm not getting political phone calls this year. The Virginia electoral cycle is out of synch with the Federal cycle (our state elections occur in odd numbered years), and neither Senate seat is up for election this year, so the only races in VA this year are the House seats. My district is so non-competitive, that the challenger is barely campaigning. My incumbent representative will probably win the election by a landslide, while hardly doing more campaigning than littering the district with signs. I would love to have a viable choice on election day, but on the other hand, it is nice that the phone isn't ringing every night with campaign messages...

[melydia.livejournal.com]

Heh, I've been getting duplicate daily mailings plus one door-to-door guy to let me know that Keith Fimian eats babies and Gerry Connolly rapes grandmothers. No phone calls - but only because we don't have a landline, I suspect.

[resqgeek]

Between the commercials for the candidates in your Congressional district and those for the Maryland Gubernatorial race, I'm certainly getting my fill of political ugliness...all of it for races that won't be on my ballot.

[mojosmom.livejournal.com]

hardly doing more campaigning than littering the district with signs.

That's another thing I hate about election season! It's bad enough that any strip of open land is plastered with signs, but then they sit there for ages after the election. Personally, I think campaigns should have a fine imposed for every sign that's still up, oh, say a week after the election.