RoboDefeat?

Jonah Goldberg at the Corner has an interesting comment up this afternoon....

Interesting e-mail from a reader:

Regarding Romney’s loss, one thing I have not seen mentioned is the robo calls.  All this week, the Romney campaign flooded republicans with robo calls.  From Monday through Friday we would get literally four to five calls a night.  They would come sometimes ten minutes apart.  If you did not answer them, they left long messages on your answering machine.  I turned off our phone on Weds, but when I turned it back on, on Friday, they were still calling so I turned it off again.  This REALLY pissed off a lot of people I talked to, me included–our son works at night a lot and we try to keep in touch via that line so I was especially unhappy.

This is something I have been complaining about (to the Utah and MN state political parties) for years.  Back in 2000 the national GOP got it into their heads that the optimal number of pre-election contacts for a candidate is 7.  I have no idea where that bit of "conventional wisdom" came from other than some paid consultant.  When it first came out that contact included word of mouth from supporters, emails, mailers, lit drops, lawn signs, news stories AND phone calls.  Over the last few years, sadly, many campaigns have dropped everything BUT the phone calls.  Don't get me wrong - I get why.  The phone calls are cheaper than traditional mailings, less labor intensive than lit drops or putting in lawn signs and more reliable than news stories.  The problem is (as one commenter at the Corner states) - at some point people start to consider the calls to be the telephone equivalent of email spam!

The consultancy class that the GOP currently relies on is one more part of the party that truly has lost touch with the average voter.  The average voter does not mind a call or two during the course of a campaign...and they prefer it to be from a live body - not a robovoice.  However, 4 or 5 a night for 5 or 6 nights straight?????  Talk about overkill

Hopefully the Paul, Santorum and Gingrich campaigns can learn from Romney's mistake and not inundate people with robocalls.  And my advise to the Romney folks - if you're gonna call set up a phone bank.  If word gets out that all you do is robocall, you are going to drive a lot of people away from you before you even get a chance to open your mouth.