Wisconsin’s a “battleground state” so everyone with a political axe to grind is swinging it my way. In the last 24 hours I’ve been called 15 times by political phone banks, from the Sierra Club to Right to Life. Along the way I’ve developed a few techniques for maintaining my sanity I’d like to share.

1) Keep a list of candidates near the phone. As pollsters call to ask you who you’ll vote for, go down the list, ticking off each candidate you say you’re voting for in turn. See how many complete cycles of the list you can make before the election comes.

2) Claim to be a relative of one of the candidates. Doesn’t matter which, just pick one.

3) Second use for the list: Every time someone calls with a push poll or other means of urging you to vote against a candidate, place an “X” beside the name. Before voting, total up the “X”‘s. The candidate with the most X’s has certainly offended more people with money (otherwise how could they afford so many phone banks) so that makes one more reason to vote for that candidate.

Currently I answer the phone with “Walker’s Political Research. And which candidate do you want me to vote against?” This throws them off long enough for to speak without interrupting them, and tell them politely I have no interest whatsoever in anything they have to say, and hang up. (I wonder how many divergent political opinions the callers have of me, now that I’ve told both sides of the health care issue, tort reform issue, environmental issues, and the abortion issue to go take a long walk off a short pier? About the only lobbies I haven’t told off are the NRA and the NAB, but that’s only because they haven’t called — yet!)

For those keeping score, I was called three times by phone banks while typing this entry.