The attorney general's office is investigating whether a survey conducted by Gen. Wesley Clark's presidential campaign this week in North Dakota was a violation of the state's new "do not call" law.
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Friday his office is looking into the matter after receiving a complaint that the Clark campaign conducted a telephone survey that uses a recorded message, which would be a violation of a law passed last year.
The new telemarketing law -- aimed at cutting down on unwanted phone solicitations -- bans the use of prerecorded phone calls unless a live operator first gets permission to play the message. The operator must disclose who's calling, what it's for and whether it will solicit money.
This is, of course, embarrassing for the Clark campaign in that they obviously didn't take the time to review the local laws before starting their telephone survey. I could see where that step could be overlooked, though. North Dakota is one of the only states in the union that has a "Do Not Call" list as most of the states were dependent on the national list. Also, this law is very new. That doesn't excuse the Clark campaign, but it makes it more understandable.
This isn't the first time Clark's campaign has been suspected of using tactics like these. A while back I read where some people had been receiving spam emails from the Clark campaign. I think Clark's promotion department is getting a little carried away.
On the other hand, it wasn't like Clark was just calling random people in North Dakota. According to the article he was calling registered Democrats as part of a survey. Despite those good intentions, the law is the law and must be applied to all people and entities equally. If Attorney General Stenehjem finds that the law was broken I would expect Clark's campaign to get slapped with a fine. I also feel that it would be nice if Wesley apologized too.