Ring ring! Caller ID says “Time and Temperature”, which can only mean one thing: The heat wave is calling asking why we haven’t posted a picture of of our dashboard’s thermomater reading yet. What else could it possibly be?
“This is Mike Carter for lieutenant governor, inviting you to MikeCarter.com.,” said the recorded message. “I’m a Ron Paul-style candidate. Check that out at MikeCarter.com. Paid for by MikeCarter.com. And you can opt out of any future calls at MikeCarter.com.”
Crap it went too fast and we missed the website. What was that url again?
Yes, the owner of the “Time and Temperature” phone number thing (314-321-2522) is running for lieutenant governor and he’s thinking that his best shot is to call you via his time and temp service. He started out just getting the old people that still actually dial a phone to find out the weather, but adding this little prefix before the actual info:
“You’ve reached St. Louis time and temperature. This is Mike Carter. You know I run this service. But you may not know I’m running for lieutenant governor. I’d like to invite you to MikeCarter.com, because I’m gonna be sending out a lot of robo-calls in the next month and if you’d like to be off the list, go to MikeCarter.com.” It then proceeds to give the time and temperature.
The nerve! When we call the “time and temp” number, we’re doing it to hear the time and temp while pretending to have an important phone call in front of a girl we like or when we see someone we don’t want to talk to heading toward us on the street. Adding a political message to that is outrage enough, but now time and temp is calling us? This is a world we no longer wish to be a part of. It feels like Jonathan Taylor Thomas is leaving Home Improvement all over again and we’re not sure we can take another hit like that!
Carter, one of four candidates for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, is defending the robo-call campaign that he began Saturday, reaching out to some 300,000 Missourians.
Carter—who is facing incumbent Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, state Sen. Brad Lager and St. Louis resident Charles Kullmann in the August primaries—says he’s merely making the most of what he’s got.
“I own it (the time-and-temperature announcement system) . . . and the equipment allows me to make a lot of calls for next to nothing,” Carter said today. “I’m a low-funded candidate . . . I said I wouldn’t raise one penny for the primaries. I don’t want to owe anybody anything.”
Carter is also considering starting a “Throwing sticks at people while yelling ‘Hey! You should vote for me!’” campaign as that is also a low cost and annoying option.
He said his use of robo-calling—now, and in his 2008 lieutenant governor’s campaign—isn’t inconsistent with that stance, since his website gives viewers the option to sign up for his own political no-call list.
“I’m going to do five or 10 of these” robo-call bursts, said Carter. He said no-call-list option on his website is a way to “take the sting out” of something he has to do to be competitive against better-funded opponents.
So you’re saying the people that don’t want you to ever call them again randomly, should just give you their phone number and you’ll promise not to do anything annoying with it (again)? …Yeah, ok. This checks out. Good idea!
Here’s a better idea: Just loose the election quietly you dumbass. We don’t know anything about this guy other than the stuff we found doing this article, but if his big idea is using his business to robo-call people, and then put out some whiney “Sorry! This is the best I can do!” message after you piss people, off only to ask those same people to go to your shitty website, that looks like it was squeezed out the ass of MySpace, to put their verified contact information in to a website so someone else can annoy them later on, then he’s too stupid to be lieutenant governor…which is saying a lot, because anyone can be a freaking lieutenant governor. More proof: Mike Carter still thinks its a good idea to own a telephone service to tell people the time and temperature. Sure the internet exists, and everyone has a clock in their face 24/7, but no it’s still a great business that is sure to be popular way after the last person named Gertrude dies.
Whew! Where we we going with this? Oh yeah: Stop taking pictures of your dashboard when it’s over 100 degrees. No one takes pictures of their dash, or tweets about the temp every five minutes when it’s 78 degrees do they? No. Because you guys are all big temperature starf*ckers and you know it. Makes us sick. (Well not you specifically. We like you! It’s everyone else that makes us sick. You’re super cool.)
via STLToday