10-29-10 Richard Crowson’s Commentary

Zombie Robo-Calls(listen)


How exactly do robo-calls help politicians?  You know what I’m talking about—those automated, prerecorded phone messages we get on our landlines (those of us who still have landlines).

I don’t know anyone who ever says, “Wow, I got the nicest, most informative robo-call the other day.  The information was so pertinent and it really convinced me that that person was the right one for the job!”

No.  What I hear people say about robo-calls is mostly not repeatable on a family radio station.  Are there really people out there who decide who to vote for on the basis of those God-awful calls?  Are we, the voters of Kansas, really that dumb?

Yesterday, I got a robo-call from Pat Boone.  To tell you the truth, I thought Pat Boone was dead and it freaked me out for a moment.  Like that old Twilight Zone episode where the lady gets plagued by phone calls and the telephone company traces the phone line to a downed wire in a cemetery.  “My gosh,” I thought.  “Zombie Pat Boone is trying to see if I’m home so he can come into my house and eat my brains.”  So, I checked online and found that he’s still alive and kicking.  But instead of recording “Love Letters in the Sand,” he’s now recording love messages for Kansas politicians.  He didn’t want to eat my brains—in fact, he didn’t think I had any brains at all.  He proved that by thinking he could change my mind about who to vote for by robo-calling me.

You know what?  They really do think we’re that stupid.  And I’ve got a feeling that the election results this coming Tuesday just might prove them right.

Disabled, elderly, and the infirmed among us have to go to the trouble of answering those calls, too.  It just proves, I guess, that not only do robo-callers think we have no brain, but they themselves don’t have a heart.

For KMUW, I’m Richard Crowson.