Another example of the difference between Us and Them (basic honesty)

I live in northern California, where we're less than a week away from a special election to decide a number of initiatives (a monumental waste of taxpayer money--one of Ahnold's little projects). As is the case with most elections, we've been getting phone calls encouraging us to vote one way or another on the propositions.

Yesterday, we received two calls. The first was in the late afternoon, and was a recorded message left on our answering machine. A woman breathlessly and melodramatically recounted a "story she'd heard" about a young teenage girl whose boyfriend's parents had forced her to get an abortion. Told about how the girl's mother tried to "rescue" her at the Planned Parenthood clinic and was threatened with arrest. The call ended with her tearful pronouncement that she needs to be there for her daughter, and that we need to protect our children :eyes: by voting yes on Prop 73 (parental notification initiative).

Later in the evening, we received a "live" call from a gentleman asking if we were registered to vote (of course we are) and were we going to be voting in the election next week. When I explained that we'd already voted by absentee ballot, he politely asked how we'd voted. I answered by asking him which proposition he was interested in hearing about. "Well, we're asking people to vote no on 75, 76 and 77." I told him that's exactly how we'd voted, he thanked me and bid me goodnight.

Here's the difference that struck me, and it had nothing to do with the nature of the calls themselves, although that was telling as well. The gentleman who called was calling from the carpenter's union; said so on the caller ID, and he identified himself on the phone as soon as I answered. The melodramatic recorded message we received came from a bogus number "888-000-0000." An anonymous bullshit call, in other words. That call came from who knows where; I'm assuming they didn't want to be identified. The democratic call was straightforward about who they were and why they were calling.

Secretive and sensational and melodramatic, or honest and straightforward. Which side would YOU want to be affiliated with?

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