Call Center available for phone surveys at no charge

[joenaab]

A state-of-the-art predictive dialing call center has been made available to us at no charge (with one exception, see below). This would include the man who loads and runs the call campaigns and databases, as he is a Ron Paul supporter, too.

The center is in Irvine, California. It is inactive right now, so there would be a $500-$750 charge to activate a T-1 line. We would need volunteers to do the calling. If they brought $5 each, that would probably cover several hours of calling for that person.

One T-1 supports 8-12 callers who can reach thousands of people in an hour or two. I offered it to the Ron Paul campaign, but they can't accept it due to some kind of in-kind contribution law. Maybe we can still make use of it?

I don't trust the Zogby and Gallup polls. There's a lot of ways we could use the dialer to take surveys that would double as a way to get Ron Paul's name out there.

Anyone interested in helping can reply or send me a message here.

[Bryan]

Joe, this sounds great but I'm not 100% clear- are you saying that calls should be done in a poll format?

In case you haven't seen it, you should get in touch with some of the locals at the ronpaul.meetup.com . When you get enough interest then others could pitch in to cover the expenses.


I had to look this up- What is Predictive Dialing?
Traditional auto-dialers merely automate the outbound dialing of phone numbers. A Predictive Dialing system is a computerized outbound dialing system that only connects agents to calls answered by real people.

Predictive Dialers learn to anticipate when an agent will become available, and then accelerate or decrease the outbound dialing rate accordingly. So as more agents use the system, the system improves its accuracy at predicting average call length and agent availability.

[Bradley in DC]

Would it be possible to just make informative campaign calls urging support for a certain doctor we all know and love? Say to Republicans in Iowa, NH.....

[joenaab]

Bryan, - yes, taking phone polls to better understand how Dr. Paul is doing outside of the Internet. More importantly is that it will give educated volunteers a chance to answer questions of people who say, "who is Ron Paul?".

Unfortunately, I live in Brazil, but I have a friend who owns a call center in California who has made it available, since it is idle. He will have time to administer the system, but can't "rally the troops", so I would need at least one committed person in Orange County to champion the project.

Bradley in DC, - you can't do that directly, because of the new telemarketing laws, but the laws specifically exempted telemarketing for the purpose of political polling. But I hear you and we are thinking the same thing. You don't want a 20-question survey, you want a short 2-4 question survey that is designed in a way that will provoke curiosity in Ron Paul and give callers a chance to introduce him to people in Iowa, New Hampshire and the like.

It's not a new idea, the big monied candidates do it all the time. It would help Ron Paul even more since the problem isn't whether or not people like him, it's in that no one knows who he is, but once they do, they love him.

[Bradley in DC]

You want to do a *positive* push poll in favor of Dr. Paul?

[StagirasGhost]

"Finance" Bradley formerly of 203 Canon?

[joenaab]

I envision a variety of polls. I'm not sure what a "positive push poll" is. I have designed a couple of scripts already. The intention would be to keep them simple.

Q1. Will you vote in the 2008 election? (yes, no, undecided)

Q2. Will you vote in the Republican Primaries? (yes, no, undecided)

Q3. Will you vote for Ron Paul in the [if Q2=no-->"2008 election", else "republican primary"]

The database would be all households with listed phone numbers, without restricting it to registered voters, people who have voted in past elections, or people registered as Republicans. This would include all disenfranchised adults who are potential RP supporters, and provide the broadest database for which to promote name recognition.

We would learn both RP's strength in the primaries as well as appeal in a potential 3rd party race. Volunteers could answer commonly asked questions about Ron Paul and the major issues (these answers can be included in the scripts to make it easier to explain consistently every time).

Volunteers could give out website adresses and could capture e-mail addresses for those who want more information. They could also get permission to send a mail piece. Lots of potential.

[Bradley in DC]

"Finance" Bradley formerly of 203 Canon?

The one and only.:cool: With whom am I chatting?

[Bradley in DC]

I envision a variety of polls. I'm not sure what a "positive push poll" is. I have designed a couple of scripts already. The intention would be to keep them simple.

Push polls are not really polls, IMHO. Push polls are leading questions about a candidate such as "Would you be more likely, less likely or the same to vote for John McCain if you knew he fathered a Black baby out of wedlock?" as the Bushies did in SC last time.

[Brandybuck]

Great idea, but I have a concern. What are the FEC rules on a call center like this? Our legal and financial disclosure ducks need to be in order.

This is a government that wanted to impose full disclosure for *blogs* for crying out loud! They're going to consider the donation of a call center to be a significant campaign contribution, far over the personal limit of $2300. We need to be extra careful in this area.

[joenaab]

I'm beginning to think that the risk might be too high since I can't afford legal counsel to make sure we do it right. I would hate to jeapordize the campaign so, for now, I'm going to focus on my blogging.