McCain Using Same Robocall Firm That Helped Smear Him In 2000, RNC has paid $8 mil this cycle

[maddezmom]

In his efforts to attack Barack Obama, John McCain appears to have turned to the same political consulting firm that was responsible for spreading vicious smears about the Senator during the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary.

~snip~

On Friday, a recipient of one of those calls, Chris Schoff of Minnesota, said that he had tied the origins of the campaign to the St. Paul-based firm FLS-Connect, run by prominent GOP figure Jeff Larson.

This past week, Schoff, a Freeborn, Minnesota Democratic County Commissioner, received the Hollywood call while at work. Because state law dictates that any such calls be made by an actual human, Schoff demanded that he be connected to the supervisor. That official, who worked at the robocall shop King TeleServices in Brooklyn, New York, said that they had been contracted out by FLS-Connect.

Officials with King TeleServices did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Asked about the connection to King TeleServices, a receptionist for FLS relayed a message from her supervisors that implicitly acknowledged that they have been working on behalf of the Arizona Republican: "If it is having to do with the McCain campaign or the RNC, you will have to direct your question to them."

According to campaign finance reports, the RNC has paid the firm more than $8 million this cycle. On Friday, Minnesota Democrats stated in a press release that FLS-Connect "may be behind the ."

More:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/17/report-mccain-using-same_n_135699.html

And earlier in the year when he was being robocalled:

In South Carolina this January, Mr. McCain described the calls against him as “scurrilous stuff,’’ and his campaign set up a truth squad to debunk them. His supporters would begin rallies by warning against them, as Henry McMaster, the attorney general, did when he told a crowd: “When you get those calls, when you get those fliers, don’t believe them when they say that John McCain is not pro-life. John McCain has always been pro life.” (Mr. McCain has been a longtime opponent of abortion; the calls apparently referred to his support for research on stem cells gathered from embryos.)


During a discussion of the negative calls on his campaign bus that January, Steve Schmidt, who was then a senior adviser to Mr. McCain but who now runs the day to day operations of the campaign, offered some insight into how and when he thinks such calls are effective – and why he thought they would be less effective against Mr. McCain this year than they were when they were used against him in the much rougher 2000 primary.

“The tactic – people do phone calls, and they have a political effect when there’s unknown quantities about the candidate,’’ Mr. Schmidt said back then, as the bus rolled through South Carolina. “So if you look at it eight years ago, John McCain had won the New Hampshire primary, comes down here where he was nowhere near as widely known as he his today by the people of South Carolina on the issues.”

“So it’s a conveyance to introduce new information — and a lot of that information on the phone is slanderous and smearing,’’ he said. “But if not enough about who the person is, or what they’re about, is known, is the criteria for it working. When you’re a defined entity like he is now, they have a very minimal effect.’’

Now the McCain campaign is using similar calls as it seeks to discredit Mr. Obama in a series of battleground states. Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, defended the calls, saying, “These calls are based on hard facts.’’

more:http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/mccain-robo-calls-critical-of-obama/