On The Record

• Rock the Vote - the latest

  May 28, 2007 @ 4:04 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Stop groaning already. They haven’t gone away, you know. Or maybe they have. Read on…
  
  While the original post attracted a huge amount of comments and reaction, one poster stood out a mile. Themary defended Rock the Vote with such vehemence, enthusiasm and energy that many would have concluded from the manner in which she fought her corner that she was involved in the campaign. In fact, she herself insinuated the same thing many times.

  However Rock the Vote’s chief bottlewasher Patrick Cosgrave came onboard on Friday to claim that “Themary does not represent the views of Rock the Vote”.

  This naturally led me to ask a few questions on the blog:

  Can you confirm that Themary has played no role in RTV, that she is not (or ever has been) involved in the campaign and, that if she was involved at the some stage, that you are now disowning her? Also, a slight suspicion raised at On The Record HQ, does Themary actually exist? Or is she some kind of cipher for RTV hardliners?

  Strangely, both Patrick and Mary went quiet after these questions were asked. Very quiet.

  Eventually, I emailed both of them and asked the questions I’d posted on the blog. Patrick did email back to say he was going to “get some kip”. That was Friday. It’s now Monday afternoon. Maybe Patrick is still asleep….

  Footnote: according to the Criminal Justice Act 2007, which was signed into law last week by the Minister for Justice, you can now legally draw inferences from a person’s failure to account for certain facts or actions. Just saying, like.
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8 Comments »
1.
May 28, 2007
4:14 pm
Avoiding answering difficult questions. Careers in politics await them both.
And, very graciously, they sent me one final piece of spam on Saturday to say they were ’signing off’.
Comment by Twenty Major
2.
May 28, 2007
4:30 pm
^Spam to tell you its the end of the spam? Brilliant!
Looking forward to an update on this saga.
Comment by Le Catch
3.
May 28, 2007
6:09 pm
I wonder how it can be determined whether the campaign was a success or not?
Comment by UnaRocks
4.
May 28, 2007
9:38 pm
Patrick and Mary said it was a success. Therefore it was a success.
Comment by Twenty Major
5.
May 29, 2007
9:46 am
Una - i’m sure some marketing/advertising wizard is already working on ratings and metrics to show what a colossal success it was. In the real world, though, it’s impossible to guage. For instance, any survey would simply ask the open-ended question “duing may 2007, did you hear of the Rock the Vote campaign?”. Now, we’ve all heard of RTV but that doesnt mean the campaign or its awful videos persuaded any of its target audience to vote. Still, enough “yes” answers means RTV can spin their campaign as a success.
Twenty - we call it spam, they call it “targetted information bulletins”
Still waiting for a response. That Patrick fella must be having one hell of a snooze.
Comment by Jim Carroll
6.
May 29, 2007
11:19 am
Don’t hold your breath, Jim.
Comment by Twenty Major
7.
May 30, 2007
12:01 pm
Una - i’m sure some marketing/advertising wizard is already working on ratings and metrics to show what a colossal success it was. In the real world, though, it’s impossible to guage. For instance, any survey would simply ask the open-ended question “duing may 2007, did you hear of the Rock the Vote campaign?”. Now, we’ve all heard of RTV but that doesnt mean the campaign or its awful videos persuaded any of its target audience to vote. Still, enough “yes” answers means RTV can spin their campaign as a success.
Too true - I was told from numerous quarters that the Frazier Fraze and other videos were shown to a study group and it got a largely positive response.
That may be true but a positive response doesn’t correlate with voter education or mobilisation.
As I pointed out on The Last Word - the comments on one Frazier Fraze video said stuff like “that’s funny” and “how does this encourage me to vote?”
My sentiments exactly (except for the “that’s funny” thing. If I wanted to see a Billy Barry kid make their attempt at international fame I’d visit the RTÉ archives and dig up any one of the Late Late Toy Show episodes).
Comment by Adam
8.
May 30, 2007
1:01 pm
This is their say from their site, I guess everyone could simply send them an email!
“We hope that in the next few weeks people will see that the young vote has had it’s say. It’s been tough work, but we’ve enjoyed the challenge. And now we issue a challenge to you.
Maybe you think that we could have done better. Or maybe you disagree with what we have done. Maybe you think we’ve hit the nail on the head. Maybe you just love us.
Either way, e-mail yousuck@rockthevote.ie or yourule@rockthevote.ie and let us know. Get involved with the next campaign - we’ve done our bit, now it’s up to you.
You’ll Do Better.
Or worse.
Probably.”
There is something a little endearing about this, I’m getting a touch of slaggers remorse.
Comment by Alice Glitter

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