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Politicians' robocalls a napper's nightmare

(The Columbus Dispatch (OH))Friday,  October 3, 2008 3:13 AM
BY ANN FISHER

Whenever readers contact me by telephone -- and assuming they  haven't already wished me dead -- I eventually ask what I can do for  them.

"I didn't get much sleep last night," a caller responded on
Wednesday.

That's not unusual, she added. At 83 and ailing, insomnia plagues  her. So she tries to catch up on her sleep with daytime naps.  She usually waits until the afternoon, "after the kids go by from  school and the dog stops barking."

Then she settles down for some shut-eye in her Forest Park home.  But it never fails: Just as she starts to drift away, the phone rings and  it's another political robocall. The intrusions have escalated in the
past two weeks, she said.

She can't afford the luxury of caller ID, and she can't take her phone  off the hook because her children and health-care workers call to  check in.

"You don't want to be unpatriotic," she apologized, "but I'll be so doggone glad when it's over. I'm to the point where I can barely take it anymore. I'm just tired out."  She's a registered Republican, so most of the calls come from Republicans. For registered  Democrats, the calls come from Democratic campaigns. It's all the same.

"Jim Hughes? I watched him grow up in church. He was a beautiful boy. And Pat Tiberi? I think the  world of them all. They're just doing their jobs. But I get it in the mail. I get it at the door. I get it on the  television.

"Can't they just stop these calls?"

They could, if lawmakers wanted to ban political robocalls. Other states have. But that's right up  there with asking them to ban drivers from using cell phones.

They're also politicians, and the cost of an automated, prerecorded 60-second call keeps shrinking  while every other campaign expense grows.  Robocalls are now the top form of congressional communication, according to a recent report by the  Pew Internet & American Life Project. The most prominent targets are people like my Wednesday
caller: elderly registered voters who are tied to a land line.

Know anyone like that?

Their numbers are expected to eventually shrink, as the generations shift more and more to cell  phones. But in the meantime, folks suffer.

In February, Shaun Dakin, CEO of the National Political Do Not Contact Registry, testified in the U.S.  Senate in support of the Robocall Privacy Act of 2008. But even that bipartisan proposal would only  limit, not ban, the practice. And it would affect only federal-office races.

I wish I had better news for my reader, who averages about three hours of sleep per cycle because  of all the interruptions.

"I can no longer get to the polls, so I've sent for my absentee ballot," she said. "You know, by the time  that ballot gets here, I'm so tired, I might be too tired to sign my name to it."

That's one form of protest. If you want to try another, go to Dakin's Web site at StopPoliticalCalls.org.

Do it for yourself. Do it for a friend.

Ann Fisher is a Dispatch Metro columnist. She can be reached at 614-461-8759 or by e-mail. Check  out her blog, Furthermore, at blog.dispatch.com/ann.
afisher@dispatch.com