Election Calls!

I don't know about you, but I don't start thinking about Election Day until mid October.  Well, this year has been a little different thanks to Mr. "Unavailable" and Mrs. "Private Caller."  Politicians seems to think that voters appreciate getting phone calls at dinner time every day just to listen to them campaign.  My calls started coming around June!  Every day between 5 and 6 pm the phone rings and a recorded message comes on telling me everything I have seen and heard in their campaign commercials on television.  I guess those messages aren't enough to persuade me to vote.  I'd like to meet the genius who came up with the idea for these phone calls.  How does interupting a family's dinner time, every single day, endear you to voters?  None of my friends have posted on their facebook: "I am so glad I got a taped call last night from my mayor, my Governor, my senator asking me to vote for them or I would have forgotten!"  For me this constitutes harassment.  There is no way to turn off these unwanted calls like they have for telemarketers and the "no call list."  We are stuck having our privacy invaded, our intimate family times intruded on day after day, night after night.  Caller ID is useless.  They get around it by using "unavailable" or "private caller."  Some of my family members come through as "private callers" and sometimes calls I am really waiting for come through as "unavailable" and there is no way to screen and know who is who.  I just let the phone ring and the answering machine pick up, but even that is annoying.  There isn't even any place to complain about this issue.  If you happen to be one of those cockeyed-optimists that sees the glass as half full (which I am not), I supposed the silver lining here is that these calls are doing wonders for helping me stick to my diet!