Sara Samuelson knew something was wrong when her cellphone rang incessantly Saturday morning. Callers said they were returning her call, or they wanted to know the location of the anti-Orrin Hatch rally, or they told her to stop calling them.
She hadn’t called anybody.
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But the Mona resident soon figured out that FreedomWorks, the tea party outfit obsessed with defeating Hatch and replacing him with the Mad Hatter, or some other tea party devotee, had been robo-calling Republican state delegates and, for some reason, used her number as the contact.
The return calls went on for days. She got more than 100. It was irritating, she said, and she eventually just turned off her phone.
She searched for anti-Hatch groups on Google and figured out the culprit had to be FreedomWorks. She called a Washington, D.C., number for FreedomWorks to let them know they ruined her week. No reply. She put a notice on their Facebook page. Nothing. She emailed them. No luck.
Finally, on Thursday morning, someone from FreedomWorks’ Washington office called her back and apologized. The woman said they normally purchase an open cellphone number to receive replies from their calls. She didn’t know how they ended up using Samuelson’s number.
But the apology may have come too late. After so many calls, Samuelson put a new message on her cellphone telling anyone who called that her phone had been hacked, she was not the one who called them and that they should vote for Orrin Hatch.
United puppets of America » An email sent recently from the address admin@teapartyutah.info encourages all like minded tea party types to attend their neighborhood caucus meetings on March 15. The idea is to make sure the tea party delegates get elected so they control what happens at the Republican State Convention in April.
Interest groups rallying troops to gain the advantage during the candidate nominating process is not new, but the interesting thing about this email is the inclusion of a statement tea party members are to memorize and use when they run as delegates.
Apparently, the tea party leaders don’t trust their followers to be able to speak intelligently without following a script.
The "example speech" instructs potential delegates to say: "I want to run for this position because I’m very concerned about the direction of our state and country, the attack by the federal government on our Constitution, the attack currently on our freedoms as well as religious freedoms (currently Catholics and soon other groups after them) ... We need to elect candidates who have integrity and will stand in defense of our liberties. I believe that I, as well as others, need to do this because our government is run by the consent of the governed (People) and if I’m not participating like other like-minded people, then I cannot complain about the direction our country is going if I do nothing. I would like your vote."
No word on whether teleprompters will be provided.
Who’s judging who? » While Utah legislators are pushing a bill that would ban minors from talking on cellphones while driving, it might be a good idea for the lawmakers to include themselves in that prohibition.
A retired police officer tells me that last week he was preparing to enter I-215 westbound from 6200 South when a car to his right suddenly swerved across three lanes, nearly wiping out a car whose driver had to slam on his brakes to avoid a collision.
The woman driver was going so fast, he could only make out the REP on her license plate. He didn’t get the district number, but clearly, he said, it was a legislator’s car.
She was probably oblivious to her surroundings, he said, because she was chatting away on her cellphone.
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