My phone call this morning to the Kerry Campaign and their response

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

I called the Kerry Campaign main headquarters this morning and voiced a few concerns.

1). The McCain-Bush "yeah" ad was perhaps the most powerful thing to come out of the campaign to date...and it got YANKED. The campaign needs to replace it with something bigger and better...soon.

Feedback: "I'll pass that along."

2). There are several camps on the site right now: the "Shut up and let Kerry run his campaign, he knows what he's doing" crowd and the "If he doesn't start fighting back, he is going to lose this election" crowd. What is your response and what is the message you would like to see go out to the people who are fighting to get the Senator elected?"

Feedback: "The campaign is responding on a daily basis, I'm not sure if you are seeing the information..."

My response: I see the information, but when I see it, you're preaching to the choir. You've seen the polls...and I know they are only as reliable as the sampling used, but the Senator HAS taken a hit from the Swift Boat ads. It doesn't matter if he took a LARGE hit, a SMALL hit, or a "barely negligible" hit. He took a hit. He needs to hit back.

Feedback: "I'll pass that along."

3). "I respect the fact that Senator Kerry doesn't want to fight a dirty campaign, but how does he feel about going up against a campaign orchestrated by Karl Rove? How does he feel about the man who set up cold-calls to the deep south in the 2000 election asking people "How would you feel if you knew that John McCain had an illegitimate black child?"

Feedback: "Groan"

My response: And you do understand that they really haven't gone after Edwards, right? Bush has the wife out there taking shots at him, but you do understand that he has not been the subject of a full-frontal attack yet, right?

Feedback: "Yes."

4). I mentioned the Purple Heart band-aids. I said "we have 60 days left in the campaign...the Senator DOES realize that the Swift Boat thing wasn't the end of it, right? The question I have is this: Is Senator Kerry fully prepared to do whatever is necessary to go up against a dirty campaign, even if he prefers not to run one himself, and do whatever he needs to do in order to win? When I try to encourage people who have these thoughts and convince them that the Senator is committed to win this election, what would the campaign like me to tell them?"

Feedback: "Ask them to keep supporting Senator Kerry."

OK, folks, I tried. Your turn.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. What do you expect - you are bitching at someone JUST LIKE YOU.

A volunteer who is there to help. But instead of doing something useful, his time was spent listening to you complain.

[atreides1]

3. Listening to Complaints or Concerns

Is part of the job, and listening to what supporters of the candidate have to say is what volunteers are supposed to do.

But I guess they can take the Republican route and just have you on hold until you get fed up with the whole thing.

Remember we Democrats are supposed to be different, we're supposed to listen to what the people that support the cause have to say, even if
you've heard it before.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

4. OK, so I see that you missed the part of my post where I asked:

"When I try to encourage people who have these thoughts and convince them that the Senator is committed to win this election, what would the campaign like me to tell them?"

I respect your opinion that I simply called up and bitched. It's your right to have that opinion. It's not what I did, however.

Have a nice day.

[mbali]

5. Have you been to the Kerry website

There's more than enough information there that can help you respond to such concerns and questions.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

8. Bitching feels better nt

[mbali]

2. What response did you expect from the volunteer or very jr. staffer

answering the phones?

By the way - they're holding their fire on Edwards for now since they didn't want to detract from their Swift Boat smear. But they're about to launch an attack on him - should come in the next week to 10 days.

[John_H]

6. C'mon. You talked to a 19 year old college kid with enough

connections to get the internship. All she knows is that it's like, so, like,cool to be ,like, a "campaign staffer."

What you're doing is costing them money on the Watt's line.

Plus, if actual real-world events don't make them change their approach, what makes you think a bunch of confrontational calls will?

[troublemaker]

7. The Republicans actually PAY people to tie up the campaign phone lines

and sow dissent on Democratic message boards, so why do it for free?