Checking Up: Were You Watching burner/reichart on TVW

Earlier tonight I was enjoying reading the Seattle Times* while eating dinner with the burner-reichart debate playing in the background. This bit of multitasking was not all that hard as the candidates were dramatically content free.

About halfway through the debate this blissful time was interrupted by the phone which would have been fine had it been a friend calling. But no, it was the fine folks at Meyer Teleservices who note on their website:

Our goal is to reach out, in a friendly personal manner, using the telephone to engage prospects in a one-to-one conversation with immediate results.

They lie.

The phone rang and even though it was an unfamiliar number (336-1894) I answered. Wham! My ear is blasted by an amplified version of reichart. Exactly what he was saying on the TV. This lasted 2-3 seconds and then the call disconnected. So much for “a one-to-one conversation.”

I believe

, though, that they did get the immediate results that they desired: was our household listening to the replay of the debate? How did they figure out the answer? Simple! They had the debate playing on their side of the ‘conversation’ and measured the feedback which would not happen if the debate was not playing.

Did I say that they lie? Yes, they do. When I called them back (1-425-336-1894) I received a very nice canned message with lots of information (a plus) and words something like:

We attempted to contact you on behalf of one of our political, non-profit or business clients. We are sorry we missed you.

They lie. They did contact us and they did not miss us. They hung up on us. Perhaps there will be a follow up call in the next day or so.

Which candidate were these folks calling on behalf of? I suspect burner. My weak rationale is that Meyer Teleservices touts some other democratic related work that they have done. On the other hand, this seems like just they type of thing that the republican national congressional committee would do. Kind of consistent with all the misleading hate burner mail they have been sending over the past few weeks.

Did anyone else get this phone call?

Dave Postman has more on the debate along with some interesting comments from is readers. The debate was live blogged by On the Road to 2008.

Update (10/12): Andrew Villeneuve, cited by burner for his fine NW ProgressiveInstitute site, has posted a lengthy summary of the debate.

*I suspect the folks at the Times think all their readers spend 30-60 minutes with the paper every morning. Not! For the few minutes I have in the morning something much lighter, e.g., a few minutes with the King County Journal is about right. Also, it is much quicker going through the Times in the evening…all but a few of the stories are, by then, nearing 24+ hours old and are, well, old news. Page 3, though, is almost always worth spending some time on and there is frequently entertaining stuff on the editorial pages.