Got a question about the 100-to-1 meme.

[backscatter712]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying don't call your senators. By all means, flood their phone lines, their faxes, their email inboxes - make sure they know our fury! Absolutely do this!

But I'm wondering where the 100-dittoheads-to-1-democrat call ratio is coming from. I haven't heard more than Internet rumor about this.

The first source I've seen is this Kos diary: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/3/121315/3223 which cites as its source "word on the street."

Does anyone have anything that substantiates this? I'm sure the Rovians in the GOP are perfectly capable of organizing zombie squads when they want to flood Capitol Hill with phone calls, but I'm wondering if it's really 100-to-1.

Just to give my own anecdote, I talked to one of Sen. Mark Udall's staffers and asked her what the call mix was, and she said it was "some for, some against."

[wryter2000]

1. I'm having a hard time believing it, too

I wonder if the numbers are inflated about Rs lying about the numbers of their calls.

[backscatter712]

3. True. Might be Karl Rove's "numbers" that are the "word on the street."

A better benchmark is to look at the polls.

Granted, Gallup is noisy and unreliable too, but less so than "word on the street."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114184/Public-Support-Stimulus-Package-Unchanged.aspx

Today, the numbers are 52% for, 38% against.

[Venceremos]

2. Here's one that attributes the numbers to

the Capitol switchboard operators: http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/02/05/angry-voters-flood-capitol-with-calls-against-stimulus/

Just because a person doesn't like the stimulus doesn't make them a dittohead. It's painting with an awfully broad brush to resort to name calling and pigeon-holing of anybody who doesn't agree with a certain political position.

I can sincerely understand why people of any political stripe would have objections to nearly a trillion more dollars in debt. My oldest son is twenty years old. He's by no means a dittohead, but has deep concerns about the very real potential for runaway inflation, as well as his generation getting stuck with this massive deficit. And yes, we all know Bush started it, but that doesn't mean we should add to it without asking questions and being extremely careful.

[backscatter712]

5. I wonder how much of the opposition making phone calls is genuine opposition...

with the reasons that you bring up - inflation and debt are real concerns, and how many of them are Limbaugh/Rove zombie squads doing the telephone equivalent of freeping a poll.

[stillcool]

6. Does your son want a job?

paved roads? Police and Fire? Safe bridges? Medical care? I do think this might be a Republicans dream, and perhaps they are right. Why not let the state and local governments fail? Let the economy collapse, and let the military take over.

[Venceremos]

8. He's in college and has a job.

He's an economics major in his junior year. He's getting his concerns from professors and guest economists in his department at the University of Illinois, not exactly a Republican or conservative bastion. So what are your qualifications for making economic decisions that affect every person in this country?

[stillcool]

13. Oh...I'm a citizen...

and as I said, I tend to agree that the government should do nothing. I think 'we the people' deserve nothing less. I hope your son keeps his job.

[rurallib]

12. I think the impetus for inflation happened quite a while ago.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. I think the Repuke a-hs made it up themselves nt

[FiveGoodMen]

7. I do, too. 100:1 is just too much to swallow.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. ACTUALLY, 100-1 is the rate at which stations estimate each e-mail or piece of mail they receive....

For example, when they get one piece of mail complaining about a show, they count that as if 100 people had written it because they have figured out that for every 1 person that hates a show complains, 99 others hate the show but send no mail.

And that number might have been misconstrued by Repugnicans as the rate at which they're contacting the media.

[B o d i]

10. The variation on that meme that I first heard hears ago is that

for every call they receive , there are roughly a hundred people out there who agree with the caller that haven't called.



Someone twisted that quite a bit to turn it into what you stated above.

[tom_paine]

15. I thought you were going to bring up the Old Bushie Prototype Lie: Ollie North has 96% approval.

Remember that one in '87? We all swallowed it like fools, and the Congressional Democrats cowered and shrunk from impeaching the treasonous Reagan and more importantly, Bush I.

In retrospect, of course it was a lie. The whole Iran-Contra Thing was a test-run of the wholesale criminality and treason the the Bush II administration has been from the very start.

I though that's what you were going to bring up. The FIRST (or early, probably not the first) Bushie BIG LIE.

Within a week, Dan Rather was saying it with gravity on the CBS Evening News. Did he wonder, I wonder, at what he was reading and the patent insanity of it?

[rurallib]

11. I would guess it is wingers calling over and over

I limit my calls to my local senators and called one once and the other 3 times.

[tom_paine]

14. Standard gestalt-based Bushiganda. Yes, I believe this is a wholesale Bushie Lie.

It fits the MO, no corroboration, planted on Kos to ensure maximum distribution of Infoganda.