Yes, I Voted

posted by Ellen Perlman

Thank goodness it's primary election day in the District of Columbia. Maybe now I'll stop hearing from a lot of my new "friends." Every day I've been coming home to recorded messages on my answering machine from DC mayoral and council candidates. And many of their wives, friends, proteges. The messages start out something like, "Hi. I'm so-and-so's high school history teacher and I think he's a great candidate because blah, blah, blah."

I can't imagine that this is useful, unless name recognition is the total name of the game. I didn't find it particularly annoying although a friend of mine was ready shoot his phone. Mostly I just deleted the messages as soon as I heard, "Hi. I'm so-and-so..." And then got miffed because none of my real friends had actually called.

I guess this method of campaigning doesn't cost the candidates a whole lot of money and reaches a whole lot of people. How effective it is is another story.

Comments

[Joe H.]

The reason candidates use this service is that it is one of the cheapest campaign tools out there. The companies providing the service promise to reach thousands of voters for hundreds of dollars. As an elected official who has been through two (successful) campaigns but has never used this service, I can't personally attest to its effectiveness. I have been around it some in other's campaigns, though, and have not been able to tell if it has any positive benefits in any of those campaigns. I suspect it helps a little with name recognition, but that may be offset by the fact that it is very annoying.