Phone from Home NH: Getting lots of pickups tonight!

[bronxboy10]

Just wanted to pass the word along. Lots of people picking up tonight, last night was awful with the voicemails. Getting some good surveys done.

 

[freedomforever!]

Thanks for the tip! I'm actually calling right now, and I've gotten two surveys done in about ten minutes! One guy was an RP supporter. The other was undecided.

 

[Brandon Todd Carr]

I was too! Lets keep up the great work guys.

 

[Dissident]

I'm getting a good response rate tonight also.

 

[gte811i]

I guess, I'm odd man out. I didn't get a whole lot of responses. The campaign does need to find a way to fix their system.

I had a lady pick up who had been called 4 times and said she had notified the AG of NH. I was able to be very apologetic, very polite and calmed her down before I clicked do not call; I think I left as good a taste as possible.

My immediate thoughts are:
1) People are not clicking Do Not Call when they should. If someone is annoyed just click Do Not Call, calling multiple times doesn't help the cause it hurts. I get phone calls all the time from financial companies (somehow I got on their list) and it is extremely frustrating - so much so that I won't give them the time of day.
2) The phone home system is messed up and is not removing people when it should.
3) ---Channeling the outer limits. Sabotage. If you've got money, one could pay people to use the phone home system just to annoy people. No vetting exists on people signing up and I don't know that their should be. But it is completely possible for someone else to use the system to sabotage things. And I'm pretty sure RP12 comes up on the caller ID (at least the lady mentioned RP12 and I didn't mention anything about Paul).

The campaign should figure out what's going on.

 

[eleganz]

The thing is, many people hang up and its hard to tell if it really was a hang up or there was an issue with the system or disconnect.

We just have to make due but the phone system needs a little work, that is undeniable.

 

[gte811i]

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the phone screwup caused a one or two percentage drop. One percentage would be about 1220 people. Say that for the day of the iowa caucas for every 100 calls one person became annoyed at RP12. It would only take 1220 people making 100 calls (maybe 30 min. of work) to tick off 1220 people. Sure most of those probably didn't go, but if you had 10k people making phone calls and the system is messed up, it would probably have an effect.

I sure hope they have someone with skills looking into this.

 

[schiffheadbaby]

one thing I've never understood is this potential scenario:

Romney hires people at 15 an hour (because nobody volunteers for Mitt) to use the Ron Paul system to prank call people repeatedly using "hey im with Ron Paul"

He could easily be doing this,

how do I know is isn't happening?

 

[Vampire]

one thing I've never understood is this potential scenario:

Romney hires people at 15 an hour (because nobody volunteers for Mitt) to use the Ron Paul system to prank call people repeatedly using "hey im with Ron Paul"

He could easily be doing this,

how do I know is isn't happening?

Excellent point. If true, How can this be verified?

 

[ronpaulhawaii]

calls are randomly monitored

 

[seapilot]

Have to understand in NH as in Iowa, poll companies, other campaigns, robo calls, political action organizations are calling everyone that is on a voter registration list. I have had people say please stop calling, then put them on do not call list.

A lot of people do not realize most of the people we got to go out and vote for RP in Iowa came from calling and identification of past RP supporter and finding new ones. So we anger 1% to get 21% of the vote. So in theory we should not make any calls and get a total of 5% of the vote from brochures, mailers, media ads and campaign events.

Romney campaign takes phone banking down to a science. He used it and probably pissed off a few people too, but look who won. It was not because of Phone banking but because of media control of peoples thinking is why we lost by a few percent.

 

[bronxboy10]

Going back at it at the half of a basketball game i'm watching. Hoping to get another 20 in during the break.

 

[ronpaulhawaii]

I guess, I'm odd man out. I didn't get a whole lot of responses. The campaign does need to find a way to fix their system.

I had a lady pick up who had been called 4 times and said she had notified the AG of NH. I was able to be very apologetic, very polite and calmed her down before I clicked do not call; I think I left as good a taste as possible.

My immediate thoughts are:
1) People are not clicking Do Not Call when they should. If someone is annoyed just click Do Not Call, calling multiple times doesn't help the cause it hurts. I get phone calls all the time from financial companies (somehow I got on their list) and it is extremely frustrating - so much so that I won't give them the time of day.
2) The phone home system is messed up and is not removing people when it should.
3) ---Channeling the outer limits. Sabotage. If you've got money, one could pay people to use the phone home system just to annoy people. No vetting exists on people signing up and I don't know that their should be. But it is completely possible for someone else to use the system to sabotage things. And I'm pretty sure RP12 comes up on the caller ID (at least the lady mentioned RP12 and I didn't mention anything about Paul).

The campaign should figure out what's going on.

Better to call too much, than to not call enough. The guy running this has been running political phonebanks for 30 years... Bottom line is that the campaign is being run by people with a LOT more experiance than me, so if they say call, I call

The thing is, many people hang up and its hard to tell if it really was a hang up or there was an issue with the system or disconnect.

We just have to make due but the phone system needs a little work, that is undeniable.

It is continually worked on. Is the system that was custom built for Rand. Inexplicably, seemingly simple fixes are easier said than done. There is an email on the system FAQ that goes to the coders

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the phone screwup caused a one or two percentage drop. One percentage would be about 1220 people. Say that for the day of the iowa caucas for every 100 calls one person became annoyed at RP12. It would only take 1220 people making 100 calls (maybe 30 min. of work) to tick off 1220 people. Sure most of those probably didn't go, but if you had 10k people making phone calls and the system is messed up, it would probably have an effect.

I sure hope they have someone with skills looking into this.

What if for every one percent we lose, we gain three?

I work with the tools I have...

 

[gte811i]

That and the more people you hire to do it the more likely that someone will squeal. Doing it and getting away with it are 2 different things.

 

[Mordan]

this call from home seems broken. are they assessing the negative impact vs the positive?

I think they should recorded ALL the calls and make volunteers CHECK the calls and remove people who don't act correctly.

another easy way to harness the power of the internet and volunteers

 

[bronxboy10]

I think the script needs something after you identify the voter such as "do you mind taking a few moments..." you know? Maybe there would be a better response rate?

 

[gte811i]

When I first found out about it, I thought and still think it is a great idea.

A couple of points:
Paul finished in Iowa almost to a decimal place of the average of where he was polling. So you've got to ask yourself? The day of surge, did it help or hurt or was it negligible? If the day of phone home surge didn't happen would he have finished in the teens? or higher? or the same?

It's obvious they were expecting a bigger win in Iowa then what they got. From the previous election he would almost finish a little better than the polls. So why is that? Did phone home stats say it was going to be bigger? Did the day of phone home surge tick off enough people? Or was it just Bachman voters going to Santorum, or just a bad day?

Sure the system was built for Rand and obviously works, but can it handle a nationwide stress test.

Yes calling more than not calling is important; I also have a little experience in proselytizing (which is what we are doing) and the last thing you want to do is piss people off. Ticking a few people off during polling is probably negligible. Ticking the people off who have been IDed as potential supporters the day of an election--- bad idea.

If the campaign knows its an issue and has it covered, great. If not, I hope they do get it covered.

If it is a software problem; it shouldn't be too terrible to fix (I work a lot in software, so I do know it could be a big deal, especially if the code was written 2 years ago- but hopefully it's well documented and everyone knows what they are doing). If it is training people--not too complex to do either.

 

[Maximus]

one thing I've never understood is this potential scenario:

Romney hires people at 15 an hour (because nobody volunteers for Mitt) to use the Ron Paul system to prank call people repeatedly using "hey im with Ron Paul"

He could easily be doing this,

how do I know is isn't happening?

He doesn't have to use our system, he already has the phone numbers. This isn't a real threat. He may be paying people to pretend to be us, but they aren't using our system.

 

[gte811i]

Oh and in addition; people knowing about these problems will make them less likely to use the system to help Paul. Who likes getting told "this is the 4th time you people have called!" You've got to have real think skin to get through that and also apologize that the system you are using is messing up!

 

[seapilot]

I think the script needs something after you identify the voter such as "do you mind taking a few moments..." you know? Maybe there would be a better response rate?

Say: I am a student volunteer conducting a very short presidential poll. Would you like to participate, it takes less than a minute.

Many people understand its going to be quick will consider it. They are afraid of being drawn into a long poll survey. Some people on occasion will talk your ear off about politics, usually how angry they are about things in general.