Time to solicit endurance for political solicitations
WILLIS WEBB

In the recent primary election season, we all discovered new offenders for the no-call list.

Technically, one can suppose that "solicitations" for your vote don't qualify under the rules for marketing calls seeking to sell you something. Perhaps there are some lobbyists who could dispute that statement since they "just might" be willing to buy a vote here and there. But since political campaigns are mostly just after your vote, although a donation would be appreciated, they apparently don't fall under the rule against soliciting off the no-call list.

From the standpoint of offensiveness, however, most folks are turned off by the automated phone calls where they hear either the candidate's voice or that of some high profile supporter for the candidate. The almost uncontrollable urge is to hang up forcefully. Although the "robot" can't hear, you do have the satisfaction of registering as a hang-up before the message got out. That'll show 'em.

Everyone has some preference as to which is more offensive - messages using John McCain or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or recordings of Hillary Clinton or Would-Be- First-Husband Bill or Barack Obama or Ellen DeGeneres or Oprah.

Can you imagine the confusion though if some of the "well-named" candidates of the past had a recorded message that went to some very uninformed person, "Hello, this is an important message from Jesse James (once Texas state treasurer)…" One might be inclined to throw their hands in the air and shout, "Don't shoot. I'll give you all of the money."

Or perhaps the call could come from Gene Kelly: "Hello, this is Gene Kelly…" to which the person answering the phone might say, "Okay, let's hear 'Singing in the Rain'." A perennial candidate with a once recognizable name, Don Yarbrough, did get elected to the Texas Supreme Court. His next campaign message, however, would have to come from the lock-up since he was convicted of a crime and sent to prison. Hmmm.

If you happen to get one of those vote solicitation calls at the time you are watching your favorite soap on the tube, and it simultaneously breaks for a commercial from a candidate, then no doubt the aggravation escalates.

However, there are those who find the vote solicitations less abrasive than say, "This is an important message about your car's safety," or "Viva Viagra." Downright insulting.

Of course, there are the inevitable calls from those professing to represent some state law enforcement entity or the solicitations to buy light bulbs from "challenged" workers.

These particular groups' phone solicitors get pretty indignant if you say no, especially if it's early in the message before they've really put the super sales job on you.

One of the best turn-offs for commercial solicitations by phone involved an imaginative and creative consumer who said to the solicitor, "Listen, I'm right in the middle of an important business dinner with some clients, but I tell you what. Since you've called me at my home in the middle of dinner, how about giving me your home phone number and I'll call you back in awhile. I've got an insurance deal you're going to want to hear about."

Click. Dial tone. That solicitor never called that number again.

It's too bad folks can't turn it around on those political callers, particularly the automated ones, in some way equally as effective as the dinnerinsurance deal answer so they won't go ringy-dingy on your home or business phone again. However, if you get enough of these aggravating phone sales calls, perhaps you can warm up on them for the political ones that are yet to come. That way you will be braced for the new phone incursion in the fall when the Presidential election and the legislative races get really serious.

Willis Webb is a retired community editor-publisher of more than 50 years. He can be reached by e-mail at wwebb@wildblue.net.