Lots of folks have been writing about getting in contact with the Schmidt campaign to inquire about volunteer opportunities, her position on various complex pieces of legislation, or even just to ask the volunteer answering the phones how they're doing today.

Let me tell you, they appreciate these calls. Schmidt volunteers love to hear from you, even if you don't support their candidate. In fact, election day is the perfect day to put aside your differences with Schmidt campaign volunteers and talk things through with them to find some common ground.

Whatever your purpose for calling Jean Schmidt's campaign today, it's important that you take your time. A slow, meandering conversation in the middle of Election Day is exactly the kind of respite hard-working Schmidt volunteers need.

So give them a break from taking important calls from the field and passing information to the campaign leadership -- and take as long as possible doing it. In addition to some suggested questions we'll be publishing later (Atrios already has one), here are some tips for extending the time of your conversation with the Schmidt campaign:

• Be suddently overcome with one or several coughing spells (see also: clearing your throat a lot)
  
  
• Be thoughtful about your remarks as you speak: include lots of ummm's and uhhh's
  
  
• Use complex sentence structure to say things the longest way possible, and employ general longwindedness (pretend you're Joe Biden)
  
  
• A person who studders has nothing to be ashamed of
  
  
• "Oh, I'm sorry, hold on one second -- [side conversation with someone else on your end of the line] -- okay, I'm sorry, are you still there? Yes, I have a really important question ..."
  
  
• If you get voice mail, etiquette says you should leave a message (using all above tips)