Political scientists and consultants say that taped-voice telephone calls are among the least effective methods of voter persuasion.
Privately, Republican consultants liken that the RNC's massive robocall effort this week to a ball and string toy -- it gives vendors something to do and activists something to think about.
Alan Gerber and Donald Green, Yale profs who study turnout, have written that robocalls "might help you to stretch your resources in ways that allow you to contact the maximum number of people, but don't expect to move them very much, if at all."
Generic robocalls -- those not targeted at specific constituencies -- are worse.
There's an exception. When the calls reinforce a message that a candidate is carrying, then they're not always a bad investment.
But the national McCain campaign is only weakly invested in anti-Obama message on William Ayers and Obama's "terrorist" connections.
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