Working for Rove

I spent a couple hours Saturday AM working at the local Republican headquarters on one of the "Karl Rove evil secret mechanisms". The awful secret consists of a phone list, created from who knows where with a canned set of questions as a "survey" that are mark-sense for later reading into a computer.

You call the party, indicate that you are "taking a survey", and then go through a series of questions. Taxes, Gay Marriage, Gun Control, Abortion ... then you ask "party preference". Only if they specify Republican do you ask the next questions about registration and interest in volunteering. In any case, you remain polite and thank them for their time.

Depending on how they answer, even if they are Democrat, Independent, or "don't care", they will get targeted mailings. Democrats and the MSM find this "evil" ... Republicans should NEVER raise the issues of "God, Guns and Gays", since those issues are "unimportant". Of course, if the issues are "unimportant", then one would think that Democrats would just be willing to agree with the Republicans on them and get them off the table? No? Hmm, maybe they aren't THAT unimportant.

Prior to the time when I'm sure I exited 95% of the Democrats lists by making contributions to republicans large enough to show up on public lists, I'd get calls with questions like "Are you in favor of clean water", or "Do you think the rich should pay their fair share of taxes". I'd bet dollars to donuts that they were doing the exact same thing, but no doubt that was "grass-roots political action", and the folks thinking of it and carrying it out were to be admired from the perspective of the MSM. It really is all a matter of perspective.

Certainly not "fun or glamorous work", but I suspect it is the kind of work that if done over and over for years builds up the kinds of mailing lists and information that helps win elections. I suspect that I'll put in a few more hours this fall just out of motivation from the MSM telling me that any hope for Republicans is a lost cause. They may always be right, but it is fine with me to do my best in a lost cause.