Robocalls

Former U.S. Senate majority leader George Mitchell has been actively campaigning for Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and U.S. Senate nominee and current Rep. Tom Allen (D-Portland).

Tuesday he campaigned with Allen, who hopes to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Bangor), and PolitickerME.com had a chance to ask Mitchell about this year's election.

The Politico is reporting that Maine voters are getting robocalls attacking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for his associations with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

According to reporter Ben Smith, the script is as follows:

They seem to come right when you've sat down to dinner. Just as you are about to lift that first fork of food to your mouth, the phone rings.

You trudge over and pick it up. Not only is it a political telemarketing call, but it's an automated one, to boot. You can't even (rationally, that is) scream at it. True insult to injury.

Officials with a non-profit Washington, D.C. political advocacy group said Monday that they feel the pain of Californians who endure these so-called "robo calls" during election season and are going to try and do something about it.

Representatives with the National Political Do Not Contact Registry announced they are investigating a California law that bans the automated political phone messages.

Freedom's Watch has begun a second round of robocalls in New Hampshire.

The calls use the same script to target both U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-Rochester) and U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes (D-Concord) for opposing efforts to expand domestic oil drilling. In June the group conducted a similar round of robocalls against Hodes and Shea-Porter.