Carpetbagging in the Information Age

Arlen Specter (R - Pennsylvania) is a cantankerous heretic, an apostate from a party that is pro-life, anti-gun control, and (supposedly) not given to wild spending sprees. Specter votes like a Democrat so often that when I had a chance to help put him out to pasture, I jumped at it. National Review Online posted the e-mail address of a coordinator for Pat Toomey who was looking for volunteers in their get out the vote effort.

Via e-mail, a dude named Sean sent me a list of about 150 numbers of the Republican faithful in the Keystone state. With much trepidation, I took my cell phone, charged and equipped with free weekends, and started calling.

The first call was hardest. I don't like telemarketing on principle. It's intrusive and always catches me at inopportune times, like during an engrossing part of Band of Brothers. However, I feel strongly that Specter's defeat will do a great deal to advance my particular brand of conservatism, and while I think unsolicited phone calls are odious, they wouldn't do it if they weren't effective. I dutifully dialed the first number.

No answer. Whew! Next call. Pick up! "Hello?" comes the voice. Crap, Where's the script??? Oh, here. The script begins "Hi my name is Tim McNabb, and I'm a volunteer for Pat Toomey for U.S. Senate…" but just as the call goes through, a giant frog leaps into my throat, dropping my "Hi" to a breathy whisper and throwing the pitch up into dog-barking range. I grunt in the poor man's ear, mumble excuse me and start over.

I finally get to the "Can Pat Toomey count on your support on Tuesday?"

"Well, I'm still thinking about it.." he replies. Wow, even after all that you'll still consider it? I think.

Leaving messages are the best. I can rattle off a message that is short enough to be largely inoffensive. I do about a dozen of them. Pennsylvanians must be an early moving bunch. It's 10:00 EST, and most folks aren't picking up. Good, I mean, shucks.

Then I hit an extra special gomer. He decides to tell me everything that's wrong with the country, and his concerns about Toomey, acknowledging Specter's no peach either. He tells me that the Arabs hate us because of our support of Israel. I am unwilling to antagonize an undecided, so I withold my wisecrack "I guess the Germans hated us because we supported Britain". Instead I let him rant until his wife calls for him. I tell him I'll pray for his job situation. He told me to pass his ideas on to Toomey, like we play marbles together.

That aside, most of the people I actually talked to were polite. A handful of hang-ups, some stating flatly "not Interested". Nobody chewed me out. On balance, my own friends are ruder to me than the strangers I spoke to today. Pennsylvanians must be pretty nice. Hopefully Tuesday night they'll get a better senator than Snarlin' Arlen.

Tim McNabb