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"Angry Black Man" Does GOTV
As Josh wrote earlier this week, I've been gobbling up the new tell-all by Allen Raymond, the former GOP consultant of New Hampshire phone jamming fame.
You might wonder why Raymond, a life-time Republican operator, decided to write the book (which is due out in early January). The short answer, as he writes: "when the shit hit the fan, my political party and my former colleagues not only threw me under the bus but then blamed me for getting run over."
Raymond's telemarketing consulting firm engineered the 2002 New Hampshire phone jamming, where Republicans jammed Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks. But it wasn't his idea (it was the New Hampshire GOP's executive director's), and he was referred to the job by a big-wig from the Republican National Committee (more on this shortly). Yet when the story broke, his former co-conspirators did all they could to pin the thing entirely on him.
So, with nothing left to lose, Raymond walks readers through his rise in the ranks at the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (where he encounters Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), whom he frequently compares to "a sheet of drywall"), and finally on to create his own telemarketing firm, which he started with the help of Haley Barbour, now the governor of Mississippi. He also gives great insight into the murky world of phone tricks.
You might say he holds a grudge. But you can't say he minces words. "Back in 2002," he writes, "just about every Republican operative was so dizzy with power that if you could find two of us who could still tell the difference between politics and crime, you could probably have rubbed us together for fire as well."
Or in case he wasn't clear, he writes about heading to prison for his role in the jamming: "After ten full years inside the GOP, ninety days among honest criminals wasn't really any great ordeal."
So about those phone tricks. The jamming, Raymond says, was a unique stunt. Much more common were false information campaigns via robocalls, push polling, and then sneakier stunts like the one described in the passage below.
To set the scene: Raymond got a call in 2000* from two former colleagues in New Jersey who ran a consulting shop called Jamestown Associates. They were working for Dick Zimmer, who was running against Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), the incumbent, and they were pulling out all the stops. (Ed. Note: This post originally stated that this happened in 2002 -- that was my mistake, not Raymond's.)
They'd already succeeded in getting a Green Party candidate on the ballot to drain liberal votes from Holt (a favorite GOP trick). And they had already put Raymond's firm to work calling Green-oriented households and urging them to support the Green candidate.
But what came next was "even better":
[Tom Blakely from Jamestown Associates] called me up and asked, "How do you guys find voice talent?""Well, I've got a whole catalog of different voices on CDs. I've got 'single Northeastern female,' I've got 'Southern belle' -- what are you looking for?"
"We're targeting Democrats of Eastern European descent using a surname select and geopolitical filter."
"Oh," I said, quickly doing the polarizing-voter math in my head. "How about 'angry black man'?"
"Yeah, that sounds good. What's his voice sound like?"
So I cued up one particular actor's CD on my computer and put the phone to the speaker. The track I played was one in which the actor was deliberately playing up a street gang character.
After listening for a few seconds, Blakely said, "That's the guy!"
So we had the actor record a spot over the telephone saying, "I'm calling as a Democrat, asking you to vote for the Democratic nominee. We need your vote for Holt."
I'm not saying that all Eastern European whites are racists, but, no matter where or when an election is held, there is a always a cultural divide that you can rely on. The message was "I'm ghetto black calling you, racist Ukrainian guy, and scaring the crap out of you because you probably think that if you don't vote for the Democrat I'm going to come to your house and take care of some business."
The calls were extremely highly targeted, household by household, no message ever left on an answering machine. We wanted the message heard only by people whose reaction would be "I'm not voting for Holt because he uses scary black men to call my house."
We made calls to Democratic union households supporting Zimmer, taped by actors putting on thick Spanish accents, figuring union workers were the voters who felt most threatened by immigration. The objective was to get them to throw up their hands and stay home on Election Day. We were just forcing those people to make a decision that was true to who they really were. If you want to question someone's character, look to the people who stayed home because of those calls.
Remember -- they were Democrats; they were supposed to be the tolerant ones.
Zimmer lost the election by 481 votes and the Green Party candidate picked up 2 percent in the polls.
Comments (47)
M M wrote on December 20, 2007 2:02 PM:Paul, you should link to the McClatchy piece today about the DoJ delaying indictments in the NH case past the 2004 election. Nixon had nothing on these guys....The RNC paid $6m to defend regional repub reps caught up in the scam to try to create a firewall before it reached the RNC.
broadsword wrote on December 20, 2007 2:09 PM:Well, that's refreshing candor from a guy who's probably going to hell.
marty wrote on December 20, 2007 2:11 PM:I actually may buy this book and read it - I want to refresh myself on all those great Republican "family values.
To think this party has been able to pass itself off to gullible fools as the "godly, moral" party is reprehensible.
Unfortunately, this guy is MUCH more representative of what a Republican IS, as opposed to what they say.
BBpd wrote on December 20, 2007 2:16 PM:Depressing. How do you take on guys who think that crime is fair play? And as we're seeing with election crime, people largely get away with it. Why would the winner launch investigations of the last election. Sad for our country.
Robocalls should be 100% illegal, with telecoms obligated to track them down and cooperate with prosecution.
gcs wrote on December 20, 2007 2:17 PM:Lest any of you begin to entertain the childish notion that this will finally ignite some outrage in the electorate, stop dreaming. All the Republicans have to do is water down the implications of what they did, then shift the blame for the rest of it onto the Dems shoulders. "Well, c'mon this is politics, a dirty business, everyone does it."
And just like that this story has all the effect and lasting impression of a great big after dinner fart.
Anonymous wrote on December 20, 2007 2:17 PM:Yeah, when is our pathetic new corps going to stop structuring this narrative as "Democratics say _____" when talking about the vile GOP franchise of rigging elections. I makes me sick.
Pete wrote on December 20, 2007 2:21 PM:"If you want to question someone's character, look to the people who stayed home because of those calls."
Yeah, because there is nothing at all wrong with fraudulently misrepresenting who you are calling on behalf of in a cynical attempt to suppress election turnout.
Les wrote on December 20, 2007 2:22 PM:The trouble is, is that it will happen over and over because they just cannot help themselves from gaining short term vs. repurcussions in future.
And the damage is done.
Needs to be quite severe penilties for this or all is a moot point.
anon wrote on December 20, 2007 2:23 PM:Yeah, a link or more to the McClatchy would be useful. Also, I'm a little unclear on the context of the Raymond, um, confessions. Are robocalls illegal? No, right? Are misleading robocalls illegal? How about misleading live calls? Phone jamming, I get, it's illegal for a variety of reasons but the stuff that Raymond is discussing? Didn't they jump through some legal hoops to stay, kinda, inside the law? If you set up a group to support a Dem and you make calls that are factually correct but use, ahem, targeted voices and lists, that's legal, right? (I know, I know, right now everything the GOP does election-wise is legal because no one is going to go after them but theoretically it would be nice to know what's on the books.)
Love this: "After ten full years inside the GOP, ninety days among honest criminals wasn't really any great ordeal."
Insane President. wrote on December 20, 2007 2:33 PM:"After ten full years inside the GOP, ninety days among honest criminals wasn't really any great ordeal."
Cute. A take-away line.
jrw wrote on December 20, 2007 2:38 PM:"How do you take on guys who think that crime is fair play?"
I think BBpd is asking the important question. I just wish I knew the answer.
The ultimate goal of Republican election crimes is to devalue the political process to the point where most people just give up on it. So far, I'd say it's working pretty well.
jeffs wrote on December 20, 2007 2:41 PM:Now let's see how the msm picks up on this book. If at all.
C92 wrote on December 20, 2007 2:52 PM:I'll pile on the McClatchy "delay the indictment" story bandwagon, but point out the particularly perverse points:
From the story --
"...In late October 2004, Justice Department officials told Hinnen it was too close to the election to bring such a politically sensitive indictment [against the phone jammers], putting it off until late November.."
Yet, up in Wisconsin, with the election bearing down, US Attorney Stephen Biscubic was going after a Democratic state worker perceoved to have some affiliation with Democrat Governor Jim Doyle's campaign full bore:a Democratic indictment was going full bore,::
"...Opponents of Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin spent $4 million on ads last year trying to link the Democratic incumbent to a state employee who was sent to jail on corruption charges. The effort failed, and Mr. Doyle was re-elected — and now the state employee has been found to have been wrongly convicted. The entire affair is raising serious questions about why a United States attorney put an innocent woman in jail.
(snip)
The prosecution proceeded on a schedule that worked out perfectly for the Republican candidate for governor. Mr. Biskupic announced Ms. Thompson’s indictment in January 2006. She went to trial that summer, and was sentenced in late September, weeks before the election. Mr. Biskupic insisted in July, as he vowed to continue the investigation, that "the review is not going to be tied to the political calendar..."
At the end of the day, Republican went to jail. And the Democrat was set free.
withheld wrote on December 20, 2007 2:57 PM:If this is what they're doing over the phone just think of what they're up to on the internets.
Oh, we should just meet them half way, we shouldn't call them names, after all we will all have to get along together after the election. ............puke......
Glenda wrote on December 20, 2007 3:01 PM:So when will the "mainstream" media publish anything about this? After the 2008 election?
JohnG wrote on December 20, 2007 3:21 PM:Here comes the irony -- after 30+ years of Republican dirty tricks, the Democrats have finally picked up the Karl Rove playbook. See the item on the Iowa flyer using Edwards to attack Obama - produced by Clinton.
So, this year the Democrats will be pulling all the tricks, and, perhaps, this will be the year that those who play dirty get caught.
I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat. (Will Rogers.)
Aaron G. Stock wrote on December 20, 2007 3:29 PM:Allen Raymond wrote: "Remember -- they were Democrats; they were supposed to be the tolerant ones."
Ha. Ha. Whatever. There are plenty of "intolerant" Democrats, simply because we probably have a majority of racially intolerant people in the U.S., including people who don't know that they are, or who know but don't want their elected officials to be racially intolerant. By default, Democrats need to get some of those people to vote for Democrats in order to win elections.
The difference, however, between current Democratic leadership and current Republican leadership is that Democrats don't *generally* appeal to racial intolerance (yes, some have) but encourage tolerance and emphasize social issues in spite of people's prejudices.
Zimmer still lost, though... intolerant people were in shorter supply than the Republicans there wanted.
What a thing for any Republican to crow about: "We can only win elections if we appeal to Americans' divisive prejudices." What a thing to want for the U.S.
oleeb wrote on December 20, 2007 3:30 PM:It's nice to have a Republican who chose to tell the truth instead of realizing after the convicion and spending time behind bars that coming to Jesus was a better racket!
One can only hope that the morons in the national media will read this and understand that this guy is only the tip of the iceberg and that the corruption of the GOP is in their DNA. Hopefully, if they realize the truth they will quit reporting on campaigns, elections, and government as though both sides do the same stuff: they don't.
I love the fact that this guy somehow thought (like all criminals), that even though had it been anyone else, he too would have helped throw them under the bus, but his expectation was that they wouldn't do it to him. Kinda reminds one of the surprise on Tony Soprano's cousin's face when Tony popped out from behind a corner and blew him away with a high powered rifle because he had become a problem.
Bottom line: the Republicans are nothing but criminals.
Sully18 wrote on December 20, 2007 3:34 PM:"How do you take on guys who think that crime is fair play?"
With a wire.With an eye directed toward collecting evidence.With a never trust or believe these guys attitude.In other words know these guys are going to try to screw you.Not a very forthright way to live;too bad it`s come to this.Criminality,if unchecked,becomes more insidious with each generation.White collar criminality has been unchecked for many generations.What do we expect?
DickTater wrote on December 20, 2007 3:35 PM:The difference between libs and republifascists is that the repubs have 1000 times more money, more organizations, more printing houses, more voiceovers, more databases, more voters lists, more datamining, more voter scrubbing...
and whole hordes of operatives and corporations and politicians backing up the whole sordid mess.
The libs have a scattered body of different organizations. Some are for blacks, some are for latinos. SOme for women, or unions, or civil rights. NONE of them work in concert, none of them cover for the others. No dem politician is going to put his neck on the line to politicize the DOJ and pull strings at the DCCC in order to save some fringe lefty group who is push-polling for polish americans. However, the rightwing is just one big snoogy....totally connected, all part of one beast.
Don't EVER let anyone tell you "well, the Dems do it too". Not even in the same ballpark.
DickTater wrote on December 20, 2007 3:38 PM:also, be amazed at this ONE republican whistleblower. With all the dirty tricks and all the dirty tricksters, a rare ONE of them actually has a conscience or wants the record set straight.
David ???? from the faithbased organization came forward with some whistleblowing, and that guy from OLC with his stories of Addingtonnnn.....that is about it.
Amazing how frightened these folks all are of saying what really happened. Imagine the pressures brought down on them if they do squeal. THey know their only hope is another job with another rightwing faker organization....so they never say a word. And they never really had a soul to begin with, it must be too much to ask that they have one now.
Beth in VA wrote on December 20, 2007 3:39 PM:Man, remember how after 2004 we kept hearing about how we need to listen to the great family value-laden Republicans??? This makes me so mad to see how horribly blatant their evil minds are. Argh!
This should be on the front page of every paper, and leading the evening news. This makes me so incredibly angry.
Wustus Shearsaus wrote on December 20, 2007 3:40 PM:Sanctimonious outrage is for losers. Democratic campaigns should adopt these tactics. Maybe calls to northeastern jewish households with a deep southern drawl, "a vote fer Romney is a vote for a good Christian."
john doe wrote on December 20, 2007 3:50 PM:I hate to say it, but the first thing that came to mind was, "I sure hope this isn't what Hillary is going to do to Obama."
Aaron G. Stock wrote on December 20, 2007 3:58 PM:JohnG, wait, you just gave an example where 1/3 of the Democratic candidates you cited is doing a "dirty trick", but then you say "the Democrats". Your assumption is flawed based on your own evidence.
At any rate, that's one reason why I don't think I will vote for Clinton.
No one here is claiming innocence across the board on behalf of Democrats (I hope not). I live in Philadelphia, I should know!
Also, there's "dirty" and there's "wrong" and there's "illegal". Also, what Pete said at 12/20 2:21 PM.
Aaron G. Stock wrote on December 20, 2007 4:01 PM:Silly Wustus Shearsaus, work on your comedic timing! Holt wasn't a loser. He won.
unclesmedley wrote on December 20, 2007 4:05 PM:There is no sin in identifying this stunt for what it is: clever!
To say so is not an endorsement. Let's be real for a moment, shall we? The democrat's primary complaint (the one that goes unsaid) is that they didn't think it up first. It's not as if they wouldn't stoop to the same level--hell, they ARE at the same level.
What separates the GOP from the Dems is a matter of ruthlessness of action--but not of intent. Nancy Pelosi would steal a baby but for a sensible fear of getting caught.
Thus, the shamelessness of the right trumps the reticence of the left--until the former gets caught.
Hank Essay wrote on December 20, 2007 4:11 PM:This guy might want to stay away from open windows...this is not going to make wingnut nation very happy....
SocraticGadfly wrote on December 20, 2007 4:16 PM:As for the third-party candidate "trick," speaking as a Green-leaning voter, if the GOP wants to help a legitimate Green candidate on the ballot or with campaign money, fine by me.
If Democrats don't like it, they can start trying to get Libertarians on the ballot.
Wustus Shearsaus wrote on December 20, 2007 4:21 PM:Aaron, don't try and confuse me with facts. Holt squeaked out a win, and good on him. But he'd have done better with, how shall we say, an equally imaginative approach to push polling.
Dave Adams wrote on December 20, 2007 4:25 PM:So the guy is a crook with inside information...
Wouldn't it be poetic justice to scan the book and post it? (yes, its a copyright violation- I know)
You sort of hate to see him profit from this again.
Eli Rabett wrote on December 20, 2007 5:14 PM:What the Democrats need (and they can start NOW) is a set of ads, that say something like: The Republicans are trying to win by dividing the nation. Here are some of the nasty tactics they used in 2002.....
You close with Bush saying those immortal words: "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
and close with the deep voiceover and the words: "We can't afford to get fooled again" Vote Democratic.
mo2 wrote on December 20, 2007 5:33 PM:According to their web site Jamestown and Associates worked on the election of Christine Todd Whitman to NJ Governor (1994-2001). So the same NJ GOP players could have worked on both the Whitman campaign(s) and the Dick Zimmer.
Whitman went on to great fame at the EPA for snowmobiling through Yellowstone during the 2nd Bush inauguration ceremony and for sending people into unsafe air after the World Trade Center attacks.
kj* wrote on December 20, 2007 5:45 PM:Question the character of those that stay home? Sure because the charater of the callers is not in question.
Isn't that much like throwing someone under the bus the blaming them for getting run over?
Cal Damage wrote on December 20, 2007 8:24 PM:UncleSmedley said -
"What separates the GOP from the Dems is a matter of ruthlessness of action--but not of intent. Nancy Pelosi would steal a baby but for a sensible fear of getting caught."
And there's the success of the RealUglyCon Party's true agenda: make everyone think this is business as usual, that there's no difference between the incredibly criminal GOP, and American politicians.
UncleSmedley wants to appear knowledgeable, and simply places himself in the MSM-Club: no point in changing parties, they're all the same. The MSM would rather keep the current admin, because it pays better and they won't have to develop new sources.
That's not being knowledgeable, UncleSmedley. That's being lazy.
Aaron G. Stock wrote on December 20, 2007 9:10 PM:Wustus Shearsaus is an online character who owns a swimming pool painted red on the bottom. Do we really want a character who paints swimming pools red to continue ruining our comments section? Yes or No?
matt wrote on December 20, 2007 9:16 PM:Eli Rabett wrote on December 20, 2007 5:14 PM:
What the Democrats need (and they can start NOW) is a set of ads, that say something like: The Republicans are trying to win by dividing the nation. Here are some of the nasty tactics they used in 2002.....
Great! That's brilliant. And then Hillary can use the tricks mentioned in the ad and everyone will blame the GOP! Her Iowa performance is showing that she already knows how. Anyone who really sees a practical difference in ethics between how the two parties behave during election season has bibbed far too much partisan kool-aid to be taken seriously.
Clay Shentrup wrote on December 20, 2007 9:22 PM:The solution to this mess is Range Voting, which would make fraud a lot harder.
cal1942 wrote on December 21, 2007 2:10 AM:This reminds me of the legendary story that Republicans love to repeat as nauseum:
Illinois in 1960.
The claim that mobsters stuffed ballot boxes in Chicago to give Kennedy Illinois.
While it may be true that some extra votes for Kennedy found their way into the Chicago count (it's still unclear how it would be possible to have made up enough votes in a huge city to get the percentages that Republicans claimed proved their case. I don't really think mobsters are that enthusiastic about hard work), Republicans omit the fact that the Illinois elction board, charged with certifying election returns, rapidly certified the count even after the ballot box stuffing tales were on the street. The election board was Republican controlled.
Now why would they do that?
You do that if you want to keep away prying eyes. Prying eyes that may have uncovered massive Republican ballot box stuffing in most counties in downstate Illinois.
The GOP was not about to be outstuffed by a handful of hoods in Chicago.
The bonus was a legend for the ages.
That story gets built into the idea that if Illinois had gone the other way that Nixon would have won. Not true. Kennedy would have won WITHOUT Illinois and if all the bogus ballots were thrown out on both sides. May not have changed a thing.
TB wrote on December 21, 2007 5:42 AM:So here's my question: If they were targeting Greens with get-out-the-green-vote calls, wouldn't that be considered a contribution to that campaign? Did they declare it as such???
michael57 wrote on December 21, 2007 8:27 AM:I have read this book (early galley, i own a bookstore in NH), and let me tell you, it is very funny. I recommend it in the way I would recommend touring a sausage factory.
Ara Rubyan wrote on December 21, 2007 9:16 AM:If y'all have the time, read Edward Westen's "The Political Brain." He talks about "the role of emotion in deciding the fate of the nation."
I checked: Allen Raymond is not listed in the index, but he should be.
Shaun Dakin wrote on December 21, 2007 10:05 AM:This is happening all over again in NH with Common Sense Issues, Inc. robocalling for Huckabee (but with no coordination with the Huckabee group, right) against other GOP rivals.
The bottom line? It is not illegal in the primaries but it is in the general election? What?
Seriously.
Shaun Dakin
carlo p. wrote on December 23, 2007 12:30 PM:CEO
National Political Do Not Contact Registry
http://StopPoliticalCalls.org
All this nasty election business could have been avoided if we'd only shot Nixon on national live coverage TV and then had a wooden stake driven through where his heart should have been. Instead of pardoning Nixon he should have been sent to jail. Some lessons are best learned by watching the mistakes of others. Do you want a better system? Publicly funding all national elections without any money from Mom, Dad, lobbyists, your own bank account would be a start. Give each and every one of them a set amount, free air time on TV/ radio, and perhaps a "franking allowance" for mailers. If your guy or gal runs out of funds before Sept, too bad. Who wants a person in charge of the budget who can't control him/her self? These elected officials spend money like "it's not theirs". Guess what, it's not theirs.
Mr. Natural wrote on December 23, 2007 4:59 PM:I say we all get some chains, pipes and baseball bats and meet out behind the grandstands...
Sully wrote on December 26, 2007 1:30 PM:I notice this book currently has 1 star out of 5 on Amazon.
Funny, that.
Stanley Moss wrote on December 29, 2007 9:48 PM:Actually it has 3 stars out of 5 on Amazon. Facts, not funny.