Polly want a cracker? No thanks

Nov. 8, 2006

My wife and I were quite surprised to get several telephone calls from our State Rep. Howard Walker last week.
Needless to say, as soon as we realized that it was a recorded message, we hung up the phone. I think he was calling -- at the dinner hour, of course -- to bother us with the slight virtues of Dick DeVos.
Now, I have always thought that Howard Walker was an okay state representative. Unlike some, he doesn‘t seem to get involved with a lot of needless, money-wasting legislation. And I said some good things about him in this column in a prior election for his support on conservation and anti-sprawl issues.
But candidates like Mr. Walker -- and others who pestered voters from Petoskey to Prudenville -- should think carefully about what they‘re doing in future campaigns.
For starters, my wife and I were ticked-off to see on our caller I.D. that Walker‘s calls were coming from Texas.
It‘s irritating enough to be interrupted at dinner with a canned call; but receiving a call from Texas adds insult to injury. In an odd way, it underscored the fact that Michigan is fighting for its economic life for jobs, and here our own state representative is, handing off the hack work of his political party to a call center in Texas.
Walker wasn‘t the only one. We also got calls glad-handing Gov. Granholm, propaganda from the mysterious billionaire behind the Proposal 2 amendment, and a weird message about a candidate who vowed to support our gun rights. Listening to these disconnected voices seemed as strange as receiving calls from space aliens.
It makes you wonder, what happens once the line is crossed between your hard-wired home phone and your cell phone?
Will your cell phone start ringing everywhere you go in the next election with messages from Hillary Clinton, John McCain and your own “helpful“ state rep?
Will your cell phone start ringing in the restaurant, the supermarket, at work, in church, at the movies, in school, and while you‘re driving?
“Hello, this is your generic state senator calling to urge you to vote for a candidate you now detest for bothering you while you‘re trying to change your baby‘s diaper...“
At some point, these political calls could have lethal consequences. Canned cell phone calls will interrupt drivers en route and there will be accidents.
This invasion of privacy crosses party lines (no pun intended). Is there a soul in America who welcomes a canned political message or takes time to listen with anything but a sense of shock and disbelief?
We all love to hear a parrot speak -- “Polly want a cracker“ -- it‘s a novelty. It‘s cute. But when a person elected to represent us plays parrot on the phone, it‘s not cute at all. We need to cultivate a new ethic of privacy in our country where any candidate who crosses the line risks being voted out of office.
Be a friend of our right to privacy, won‘t you? If you received any of these nuisance calls from your state rep or senator, be sure to give him or her a call at home to say how irritating it was. And do be sure to call at dinner time.