2008-09-08»
world’s worst libertarianยปSo I spent some of this evening phone-banking for Obama.
One of the benefits of being a green carded permanent resident is that not only can you give money to shore up the evil excesses of big government, you can also volunteer to help out. I justify my support by claiming that I am merely good old fashioned free market competition to other, paid, telemarketeers, because that’s pretty much what phone-banking is. You have a script, you call somebody in a swing state, and ask them who they like and why. Well, actually, you mostly call dead-end numbers or are hung-up on (I don’t blame them: when I was in a swing state in the last election, it was amazing how besieged voters were: every radio ad a political play, every call a pollster or a robocall, every mail delivery weighed down by glossy lobbying brochures and postcards).
My favourite moment was calling Lucille in Nevada. After a cheery “Hello, lover — I’ll be with you in a moment”, I was put on hold for a few seconds, and then asked what I’d like. When I said that what I’d like would be speak to Lucille, I was patched through to an older lady, who explained she handled the girls here, and anything that I wanted had to go through her. After talking at cross purposes for a few more seconds, we both realised that Lucille did not want what I was offering, and vice versa. I marked it as “wrong number”. Whose mailing lists did they buy for Nevada, anyway?
Anyway, I highly recommend doing this kind of thing (the phone-banking, I mean): I think both campaigns now let you do it from home.