In the last few months, my family has learned techniques akin to military maneuvers in trying to survive the election campaigning.
Here are some of our responses:
- If we answer our phone, the other party had better talk within two seconds or we’ll disconnect. I hung up on my brother twice one afternoon because he was composing a cute reply instead of just saying hello.
- After we discovered that our answering machine shut down at 20 messages (all of them campaign calls), we wiped the slate clean. When it was bogged down again only two days later, we let it ride. Now callers are simply informed there’s no room for them. It works for us.
- Someone in the family (and I will not identify this person except to say it is not me) takes all the automated digital surveys using different demographics each time. Remember that when you rely on poll numbers.
- We go through our mail standing by the trash can. You could re-side your house with all the glossy political postcards we’ve tossed.
- We voted early, hoping the calls and mailing would stop. That didn’t work out for us but we’re coming together as a family singing “lalalalala” during TV political ads.
- We choose to inform ourselves, reading speeches and position papers, listening to issues important to us and ignoring crazy rhetoric. There are, for example, some issues that breathless ads try to stir emotions about that have nothing to do with the candidate’s responsibilities.
We’ll survive but hope someone notices that an awful lot of campaign dollars were wasted on us.
