Remember what your Uncle Wiggy said was the main reason for doing automated telephone calls: To make sure that the voters are so annoyed that they don't listen to your opponent's automated telephone calls.
True story, although I confess the details are a little hazy. I was doing a mass campaign mailing when my colleague and I ran into someone from the Republican Party. He asked,
Why are you doing a mailing?
Because some donors are afraid there's not enough GOTV, and they offered to write the checks.
But we're already doing a massive phone effort. We're getting a hit rate of 9%!
That was before robo-calls and voice mail.
Mail, as I'm happy to remind everyone, reaches 100%, even if all they do is walk from the mail box to the recycling bin. Somebody had to at least "ID and give the significance of" before tossing it out.
More effective? Actually meeting the voters and asking them for their vote directly. It drives me crazy everytime I hear some candidate think they can re-invent the wheel.
