Political Robocalls from Hillary

Just a few minutes ago, I received a phone call at my home from 703-637-9323. I immediately recognized the area code as coming from Northern Virginia, and so I answered the call--thinking it might be a friend from the Washington, DC area. I answered but there was no one on the other end. I hung up but curiosity got the best of me so I called back the number that had shown up on my caller ID. I got the voice mail of a young lady explaining it was the campaign headquarters of none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton. The young staffer explained that if I wanted my number removed from their list that I needed to leave my number and the state I was calling from. I did so and left an unkind message explaining that no one in my household would be voting for Hillary Clinton anytime soon.

Apparently, many disgruntled voters from around the country have received unsolicited calls from the same Hillary number. And to paraphrase one the posters at that above link, Hillary and her associates are truly nuts if they believe that these unsolicited calls at 8:30PM on a Sunday night will lead to more votes.

The other curious aspects of these unsolicited Hillary calls is: where did her campaign get my number? I am proud to say no one in this household has ever voted in a Democratic primary (despite my own temptation to contribute to this year's defeat of Dennis Kucinich). And as we all know, the Ohio primary is closed. Independents and Republicans cannot vote in the Democratic primary. It's been this way for a while here. My home phone number has been on the Federal Do Not Call Registry since its inception (of course politicians in Washington conveniently excluded themselves from the ban). So, how did Hillary get my number? It was likely purchased from somewhere or taken out of the phone book. Either way, Hillary isn't helping herself with unsolicited phone calls.

These political robocalls have recently garnered the attention of the U.S. Senate. The proposed Senate bill would not allow political robocalls to mask their identity on caller IDs, make more than one call to a number per day, or call before 8AM or after 9PM local time. The restrictions would only be in place 30 days before a primary (60 days before the general election). The bill is being sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Daniel Inouye.

No word yet if Hillary will be taking a break from her flourishing Presidential campaign to co-sponsor the bill!