South Carolinians: Super PACs? It’s robo-calls we hate

Paul Conner Executive Editor
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GREENVILLE, S.C. — South Carolina voters have been bombarded by political robo-calls, as many as a dozen per day, at all hours. This reporter received a half-dozen such calls at a Greenville residence during just the first 30 minutes of Thursday’s CNN debate.

And the frustration is spilling over on Facebook.

“One more phone call, & I’m not voting for anyone!” wrote one angry upstate voter Tuesday.

“I am ready to NOT vote for ANY POLITICIAN who calls this house again,” another Greenville resident posted on Facebook Tuesday night. “What makes them think that a constant barrage of insane babbling, mudslinging, and outright nonsense is going to endear them to me?”

A very small minority of the phone calls on behalf of the Republican candidates are from real people. The campaigns of Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum each have offices in the Greenville area, with as many as 20 volunteers manning the phones, usually working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Ron Paul’s campaign has a Columbia office with a similar phone bank.

But that’s hardly enough people to cover a population of more than one million people. Thus, robo-calls.

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