Celebrity Robocalls

You’re sitting eating your dinner when the phone rings. You say, “Hello?” and are answered by a recorded voice. They want to help you lower your mortgage rate. Or they want to sell you satellite television. Or they have a great offer on a house in the Poconos if you’ll come to their meeting at the Sheraton in Fairfield. Eventually, you learn to read the Caller ID beforehand. If it’s a number you don’t recognize, you just let it go to your voicemail. One beep and it’s all over.

But every once in awhile, you forget to check the number and get hooked. Only this automated call had a familiar voice. This not some nobody from Indiana; it was Rudy Giuliani, America’s Mayor, the Man of 9/11. It was only a recording, but I was so impressed by this celebrity robocall, that I listened through it anyway, as he endorsed Roland Straten. If he’d called to endorse the other guy, I would’ve hung up.

It may have been a robocall from a famous politician, but he was endorsing a genuine person, not a career politician. It always helps to check out these politicians’ websites, do a little homework. Be a little curious. What was this ship, the USS Pyro. Cool name for an ammunition, though it seems to me you had to have a lot of guts to serve on a ship like that. Guts is what it’s all about.

That’s what I told employees at my company, today. Used to be, in better times, we celebrated Halloween with costume contests. They were an awful lot of fun. Employees designed some really funny and unusual costumes. Those days are over now. Everything we do, even in Public Relations, must have a business angle.

I’m really in the Communications Department, but I’m still part of the Public Relations Department. Since we weren’t really celebrating Halloween, I could still get away with some Halloween Dress-Up if I combined it with a serious initiative like getting out the vote.

The designers weren’t in yet, so I had to make my own Remember to Vote sign out of cardboard files that I glued together. The printing and design wasn’t the greatest, but what the heck. I started out on the fourth, and gloomiest, floor of our office building and made my way down, wearing my Molly Pitcher costume, complete with ramrod and Badge of Courage badge (borrowed from the Wizard of Oz section of the Halloween store) and a striped apron I made out of a dish towel.

Some people knew who Molly Pitcher was, some didn’t. Those who didn’t enjoyed hearing her story, particularly the women employees. Many of our employees are customer reps so I couldn’t call out loud. I’d tap on their cubicle walls a few times until they saw the sign. When they saw the costume, they laughed anyway.

Other employees I was able to stop and chat about politics with for a few moments. As a PR person, I’m not allowed to endorse candidates. However, it was interesting to hear their feelings about the election. Republican or Democrat, they felt that the best candidate for office would be George Washington.

One woman declared that she would not be voting. When I asked her why not, she said, “Because they’re all politicians. They’re all alike.” I told her I didn’t see how we could quite around that problem, even if All Saint's Eve is coming up on Sunday.

“If George Washington were running for office,” she said, “then I’d vote.” Her aisle mates all agreed, even though they were clearly on opposite sides of the political fence. They all felt that we needed to get back to the way the Founding Fathers did things. That would mean having to return to the horse and buggy days, even before trains.

But maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. New York was the first capital, and then Philadelphia, and finally Washington, D.C., which brought the capital closer to the Southern states while not being too far from the north. Since travel was difficult and dangerous in those days, they only met four times a year and didn’t stay any longer than they had to.

Instead of Nancy Pelosi, and her successor (let’s hope), flying around in private jets, maybe they would go about the business of the country more efficiently if it took them two weeks to get to the Capitol. Along the way, they’d meet real Americans. They also wouldn’t be inclined to write any more legislation than they absolutely had to.

Washington, D.C., was originally a swamp. Maybe the Founders chose that disagreeable site so no one would want to go there any more than they had to. However, it had the side effect of attracting disagreeable creatures who thrive in such an environment. Decent people don’t want to live in a swamp and are all too happy to observe term limits and return to their homes. George Washington couldn’t wait to go home to Mount Vernon.

But if you’re a snake, or an alligator, or a leech, you’re right at home in the swamps of Washington. Should the decent people get elected this year, eventually, they’ll want to go home again and other decent people must be ready to take their places. Otherwise, the snakes, alligators, and leeches will fill the void the decent people have left behind.