Posted on 01/31/2016 12:04:53 AM PST by JediJones
A voter report card mailer is grading residents on how often they vote compared to their neighbors and some Missourians aren't happy.
Grow Missouri sent the mailers the week before the Nov. 4 election to spur residents into voting during the first general election in nearly a quarter-century featuring no race for president, U.S. Senate or governor.
The group is financed by investment firm founder Rex Sinquefield, the state's most prominent political donor.
The voter report cards give letter grades to voters based on participation and then list neighbors' scores. The mailer says it might issue another report after the election.
Some residents say the mailer is an invasion of privacy, even though voting records are public. Efforts nationwide have met similar complaints.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox2now.com ...
Own up. It was despicable and stupid, and unbecoming a candidate who started out strong on traditional USA values....like privacy.
Do you guys have an excuse for EVERYTHING? How's that going to make America great again?
The true origin is the Pits of Hell!
:)
It has NOTHING to do with privacy. Public records are not private, period.
I agree with what someone said that the Report Card label is nicer than Voter Violation. So I would have kept that original label on it.
I hope it backfires, not just in Iowa, but as a turnoff for voters in other states who now have heard about it. I hope so.
This is becoming deja vu from eight years ago. ANOTHER Harvard-educated lawyer with not even a full term in the US Senate being touted as a brilliant Constitutional lawyer? This letter and dismissing the "natural born" situation as silly and Cruz's lack of debate skills have me wondering about this crumbling narrative.
It’s extremely shortsighted to put a single campaign ad above the kind of job a man will do as President for 4 or 8 years. This ad will have no impact on anyone’s life for more than a day while we’ll be stuck with the next President for years.
What’s really interesting too is the stamps on the top corner are phony stamps. Cruz’ mailer has the exact same 8 stamps in the same position. So the people saying this cost $5 to mail or whatever are wrong. They put fake stamps on it to make the cover look better I guess and then paid to mail these by unstamped bulk mail.
JJ, this isn't just about the campaign ad as an ad. It reflects on judgement and knowledge of applicable laws. It has us scratching our heads and wondering why is it being defended? Perhaps a sacrificial firing would've been the way to go. This mailing shows a lack of knowledge about community etiquette for us little folk, who don't get to choose our neighbors.
Besides that, it's tone deaf. That ad over Cruz ad over Christmas with Heidi and the girls was right at the edge of the code of protecting the kids from publicity, but we all supported without hesitation the Cruz family when the editorial cartoon came out. But what happened? After that, the Cruz ads became ubiquitous, than omnipresent....we couldn't escape them...phone, email, letters. This outrageous mailing is icing on the cake.
FWIW, the pile of things that Cruz has done (always with an explanation) that don't fit the original narrative is getting close to overwhelming.
Why am I spelling it out? Because the US is running out of time. I really believe unlikely hero Trump is the only one who can get the whole nation's attention and maybe turn things around. And please, none of the nasty stuff about him. Everyone knows that unlikely heroes tend to be imperfect, so we accept Trump's path to get to where he is.
Just a horrendous political mistake by Cruz. Almost as though he wanted to guarantee defeat.
To be so fired up so early. ...must be LTGM punishment's per tagline.
I wish people would realize that more voters does not necessarily equate to a smarter better-informed electorate. If somebody does not want to vote, that tells me they understand they don’t know who the candidates are or think it will make no difference to their lives and that’s actually more fair than to vote out of peer pressure and then choose poor candidates for esoteric factors like name recognition or place on the ballot.
It runs on smoke. When the smoke comes out of the equipment, the equipment stops running.
No damages, really, so no civil suit. And the practice is legal. So, all you can do is take out any frustration or anger some other way. Use it as kindling, drag all your friends to the poll and vote against the person who sent it (if it sends you over that edge), etc.
They say that the folks who are dumb enough to be swayed by campaign ads are the ones who decide national elections, the supposed ‘swing voters.’ So the dumbest 10% of the 50-60% of eligible voters who bother to vote in national elections are the ones who actually decide. Pretty depressing.
Freegards
Anything saying violation sent to a lower mentality person or a senior who has lived their life conscientiously avoiding “violations” is impacted with fear if even momentarily. This was a very bad move for any campaign and no excusing the action. I agree it does not define a campaign but it sure raises questions.
I would hate to get a notice giving me a grade on my voting record (by the way, my record would be A+), and then, especially if I were a non-voter, to have that shared with the neighbors. It is a humiliating thing to do to remark on someone’s participation in elections. Some people are ill equipped to vote, or disdain politics, fine, leave the vote to people who read up on the issues and vote their conscience. Voting may be public record, but I’m certain my neighbors, or the majority of people, go down and snoop through voting records to see whether or not I vote. Sending out these mailers, and grading people on their participation is stupid.
You say it’s stupid, but the experts in the articles say it’s effective, even more effective than knocking door-to-door. Try making phone calls in an election. I’ve done it and you gets tons of people hanging up on you. There are always people who hate being contacted about an election. But it’s clearly worth it to annoy them in order to reach the ones that the electioneering works on, or they wouldn’t do it. I’m sure this mailer wouldn’t work on anyone in this forum, but there is apparently a more politically apathetic type of voter it works on.
Sure, I get it, Trump doesn’t have to perfect, but Cruz does. Typical Trumpster logic.
Trump’s Cuba policy, his NSA spying policy and his too-positive view on universal health care are all dealbreakers for me as long as Cruz is in the race. And the fact that Cruz, as someone who argued many times before the Supreme Court for conservative causes, is the IDEAL candidate to appoint better Supreme Court justices than ANY President we’ve had in my lifetime is his top selling point for me. Plus he polls better against Trump in the general, and doesn’t have 30 years of on-camera interviews for the Dems to data mine for negative quotes. So Trump just doesn’t measure up as a candidate for me next to Cruz.
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