by Linda Hirshman

Everyone who cares about politics should spend time in New York's 20th Congressional District. Our Representative, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, beat longtime incumbent Republican John Sweeney in a hot contest last year as part of the Democratic sweep. No sooner had she taken her oath than the Republicans started targeting her. Representative Gillibrand could not put her shoes on in the morning without a Republican press release: "Wicked Kirsten Gillibrand Wears Shoes Just Like Nancy Pelosi Does," or some such, dutifully reproduced in the content-challenged local papers. I had not been paying much attention to the fray until last week when my phone rang with a message from the National Republican Campaign Committee. Well, not the committee exactly; one of their autodialing orcs, the evil army of the spawn of hell, a robocall. I was working when the orc phoned, so I was doubly annoyed, which led me to think about the bloated Republican campaign chest and their ability to marshal their armies to make phone calls eighteen months before the next election. WHAT IS TO BE DONE? In his recent article in the NYReview, Michael Tomasky highlights the suggestion (actually from Drew Westen's book The Political Brain) that Democrats should be inoculated from such robocalls with the following message: "If you get computerized calls that won't stop, calls in the middle of the night ... send a message to the Republicans on Election Day that Republican candidates who run on values and morality but show such a deep disrespect toward both the Constitution and the Ten Commandments will get what they deserve." Apparently intoxicated by his own rhetorical brilliance, Westen then suggests that if Democrats said that a week before the election, such a message would have "prevented exactly what happened across the country again in 2006." I don't know about you, but Westen's suggested inoculation sounds an awful lot like my mother, circa 1952, telling me I'm really going to get it when my father gets home. I'm Karl Rove, and I'm worried about Democratic voters punishing me for my deep disrespect for the TEN COMMANDMENTS? It's woosy nonsense like this (to say nothing of the unedited message taking 90 words to get out) that got the Democrats into long-term minority status in the first place. So here's my proposal. And I made good on it with a 20-word email to the Gillibrand campaign. You can do it too at whatever income level you are at and in every district now represented by one of the 2006 Democrats: WHENEVER I RECEIVE A ROBOCALL FROM THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE, I WILL GIVE [say] $25.00 TO THE DEMOCRAT'S CAMPAIGN. Bring it on, Rove. It'll be sort of like "Dialing for Dollars." The only downside I can think of is if the Democratic campaign starts making faux robocalls to get donations. But hopefully the Commandment about stealing will restrain them. And the strategy has two further virtues. One, it does not depend on my approval of every thought or action of the particular Representative or anyone else's opinion about where the crucial electoral battles are. It's any Democrat the Republicans think is vulnerable. Orcs show, Democrat gets a donation. And two, it does not depend on getting rich Democrats to agree with one another. Just let Karl Rove raise money for Democratic candidates. Or maybe this will stop him from doing it. It's worth a try, no? Certainly the Ten Commandments haven't been all that useful.