Hothouses and Frontlines

May 30, 2008 – 12:06 pm

Not Fussed’s embedded American Reporter, Duke Warren, speaks out from the trenches of the American Democratic party’s civil war.

 

 

The ‘Hothouse’ is a dimly lit office building deep in the heart of industrial wasteland. It features row upon row of desks containing a phone and a printed board of responses. The inhabitants, mainly political students from local universities, use an auto dialler to call whole neighbourhoods to encourage them to vote for their candidate. The similarity to a battery chicken farm is not lost on the staffers who refer to this soulless place as the Coop. There are hundreds of these Coops up and down the country, for all sides of the political spectrum, all with the same purpose and the same method of operation.

I get chatting to a young, blonde grad named Andrea who showed me through her routine.

“When I pick up my phone it automatically dials the next available number on ‘The List’. Once that call’s over it goes to the next number on the list and so on for as long as I hold the receiver. The name and address of the occupants flashes up on this little display.”

‘The List’ is a piece of telemarketing gold. It’s the telephone numbers of every registered voter in the state who hasn’t specifically opted out of telephone canvassing. ‘The List’ itself is held on a computer which handles all the telephones in the Hothouse assigning outgoing calls to each manned desk.

As long as you’re registered to vote you could get a call at any time, from any candidate, begging you to use your one shiny vote for them as they’ll raise taxes/lower taxes, increase/decrease gun control, promote integration/segregation in local schools. Whatever it is you need to hear, Andrea and her ilk will tell you it in return for your pledge of allegiance.

“So what happens when you get someone on the phone who doesn’t want to discuss policy with you?” I asked.

“Well, you get a variety of people who don’t want to talk. Some will just hang up, some will apologise before hanging up and some will swear at you then hang up.” She indicated a highly unofficial tick list to the right of the phone featuring all the common or garden American-English swearwords. I noticed that she’d ticked several S’s a few F’s and one C word. “We assign points values to each word and the highest and lowest scorer have to buy the beer that night.”

The staffers finish work at nine as any call made after that time will engender severe dislike even in the most hardened of political hearts. Andrea and her crew invited us to the local student bar, where over rounds of beer and chicken wings these fresh faced young pols explained what made them get involved with the campaign.

“It’s not about ideals, it’s about ambition,” Callum, a local student explained “Everyone wants to be on the winning team. It makes your CV look that much more stacked to have worked on the campaign team that won your state. They don’t have to know all you did was talk crap down the phone for a couple of hours every night.”

As ever the involvement of these Young Turks is not about policies or belief, but about winning and just being involved. They don’t think that any of these candidates will change things irrevocably

“Most people don’t mind talking about their vote,” His friend added “It makes them feel important. They have a bargaining chip in this game and they’re not going to let it go lightly. Also if someone starts getting hot and heavy, pure angry, demanding to know your name and who you’re working for you tell ‘em you’re canvassing for the other candidate!”.

They clink glasses in a toast at this point and go off into one of those heavy duty drinking games that seem to flourish only in political colleges.

“The other candidate” is a phrase you’ll hear a lot around these campaigns. To name them directly is to invite the curse of the evil eye and hellfire and damnation be upon thee. Actually its more to do with name brand recognition, the less you say the name the less the public hear it and the less they know about it. Marketing has always been a strong part of American campaigns, but its been honed and sharpened with the advent of TV into a tool so sharp, it cuts the very reality surrounding it. This creates a shadow world of Politics where decent men are strung up like dogs and the rats wear two thousand dollar suits and expect to be called Sir.

This is why its impossible for your average Joe Schmoe to get a handle on the candidates and their movements. Because these politicians walk in this altered world where a single slipped up word in a radio interview in Alaska, to an audience of precisely six people can destroy your campaign. In this age one wrong move anywhere at anytime will be shared on Youtube and used as proof of your unsuitability. Look at McCain’s version of bomb Iran on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAzBxFaio1I) if you don’t believe me. The candidates have to be on message at all times in all situations, which makes them untouchable and almost inhuman.

Obama (www.barackobama.com) doesn’t give that impression. He’s worked so very, very hard to look like someone who doesn’t play the game. He’s sold himself to the public on his naiveté and his unwillingness to become just another suit in the White House. Its a beautiful dream that a good honest man can make it to the top and change things for the better. When that blows up in our faces, when he slips his black mask of justice and starts screwing us in exactly the same way every one of his predecessors has done, I won’t be surprised. Saddened, but not surprised. He is virtually guaranteed as the Democratic candidate with just a few formalities to go.

Speaking of formalities, Hilary (www.hillaryclinton.com) is the exact opposite of her rival, representing the old guard of the Democrats. She was part of Bills political machine way before she was the First Lady and is seen as a net-worker, a game player, someone who knows and understands Washington. This served her well in the early days of this election when the votes were coming in thick and fast. Now she’s fallen behind however things are different. She’s latching onto every break and half chance she can to try and scramble those final delegates. She has a junkies mad gleam in her eyes, scrambling for every last desperate crumb of dope, desperate to relieve this painful gnawing at her soul that screams “I could have made it! I could have been President!” Her biggest flaw has been her old Sleaze, Poppa Bill himself. With his strawberry fruitchew head, he’s either got a nose full of poppers or serious cardiovascular problems. She’s so far behind Obama that only desperation continues to push her forward.  

McCain (www.johnmccain.com) is a decent man. There I said it. For a politician he has courage, scruples and an impeccable record. I just can’t work out how he beat the Grand Old Parties usual run of deadbeats and greasy knifemen to the top position. He might be a little bomb happy, but with his actual plan for withdrawal from Iraq, I’ll take him over Bush any day of the week. Hell! I’ll take him over most of the previous Democratic candidates. But his age may well count against him. Even the retirement homes are buzzing with rumours of his health issues. But if Dick Cheney CHK can survive fifteen heart attacks whilst in power who knows how long McCain could last?

All three have run and run well, without the usual snapping and backbiting of a truly dirty campaign. However soon the three will become two and then we all get to say who goes and who gets to stay in the Big Brother House, sorry I mean White House. For four whole years.

Is it depressing that more people vote on Pop Idol than will actually make it to the polls this year? Is it a sign of a sick society obsessed only with image and itself, or that we need a Simon Cowell-alike to decide who is the hero and who is the villain?

 

Duke Warren