Operation Clark County

dahamsta

I can't decide whether this is a brilliant idea or a terrible invasion of privacy. I guess it's both really, and needs musten...

Operation Clark County

The result of the American election in less than three weeks could have huge consequences for the whole world. Yet those of us outside the 50 states have had no say in it. Until now, that is.
In the spirit of the Declaration of Independence's pledge to show "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind", we have come up with a unique way for non-Americans to express your views on the policies and candidates in this election to some of the people best placed to decide its outcome. It's not quite a vote, but it's a chance to influence how a very important vote will be cast. Or, at the very least, make a new penpal.

It works like this. By typing your email address into the box on this page, you will receive the name and address of a voter in Clark County, Ohio. You may not have heard of it, but it's one of the most marginal areas in one of the most marginal states: at the last election, just 324 votes separated Democrats from Republicans. It's a place where a change of mind among just a few voters could make a real difference.

[...]

You'll find a more detailed article here.

adam

mike65

Talk about desperate measures...imagine if something similair were applied to a vote in any other democracy there'd be hell to pay.

In formulating your letter, you will need to introduce yourself: no individual Clark County voter will have any reason to be expecting your communication. And in choosing your arguments, keep in mind the real risk of alienating your reader by coming across as interfering or offensive.

yep!

Mike.

dahamsta

mike65 wrote:

Talk about desperate measures...imagine if something similair were applied to a vote in any other democracy there'd be hell to pay.

Would there though Mike? Would you have a major problem with a single unknown American writing to ask you to consider your vote carefully? Even if they were somewhat rude and said something silly like "Vote 4 $suchAndSuch cos $dooDah's a d0rk!", wouldn't you just trash it or write back and tell them to bugger off?

The only thing that'd tick me off about it would be the free availability of my address, but I think that applies over here too anyway?

adam

bonkey

I think its a terrible idea.

If Americans tried influencing Irish people's votes on a key EU issue in this manner, I'm pretty sure most people here would be outraged at those fsckin' 'murricans interfering in our independance, sovereignty, and all the rest of it......so why would it be any different for us (or others) to do likewise to them.

Similarly, I'm of the opinion that if these voters haven't made up their mind yet, then this isn't likely to help them. "Personal touch" it may be, but its just another source of opinionated, potentially confusing information....and thats even before we look at how well/badly informed some non-American is likely to be in offering an opinion....

Lastly, whats to stop Republican or Democrat lobbyists setting up a ton o' junk false accounts, and sending propaganda to these people supposedly from non-Americans in that manner in order to further bolster their side / confuse the issue?

I say let them have their own elections. We can look on and comment, it is not our place to interfere.

jc

mr_angry

Surely unsolicited e-mail (i.e. Spam) is considered illegal in the US these days?

dahamsta

mr_angry wrote:

Surely unsolicited e-mail (i.e. Spam) is considered illegal in the US these days?

It's not sent by email mr_angry, you fill in your email address on the Guardian website and they send you a snail-mail address. It should also be noted that when an address has been assigned, it's deleted from the pool, i.e. these people should only get a letter from one person.

It's certainly open to abuse bonkey, but I'm not sure I agree with you that it's not our right to interfere. I don't necessarily agree with an eye for an eye, but there's certainly no doubt in my mind that American politics interferes with the daily life of many people outside of America.

adam

Sand

Im reminded for some reason of that time Mr Bush dared to say that Turkey should be allowed into the EU. Oh the fun and games that arose then. How dare Mr Bush intefere in EU business!!!!

Honestly though, if you want to help Mr Kerry *dont* do this. Americans arent unlike everyone else in the world. Theyll be just as annoyed and irritated by lectures from abroad. There might even be the tendency to vote Bush out of pure spite.

and thats even before we look at how well/badly informed some non-American is likely to be in offering an opinion....

Nonsense Bonkey - everyone knows Europeans know more than Americans about anything. Ever. Ever ever. We can happily lecture the US on how to elect a good government. Sure havent we got Bertie to demonstrate our good judgement?

bonkey

Sand wrote:

Im reminded for some reason of that time Mr Bush dared to say that Turkey should be allowed into the EU. Oh the fun and games that arose then. How dare Mr Bush intefere in EU business!!!!

Exactly.

Nonsense Bonkey - everyone knows Europeans know more than Americans about anything. Ever. Ever ever. We can happily lecture the US on how to elect a good government. Sure havent we got Bertie to demonstrate our good judgement?

How foolish of me to try and slip that one past you. I do apologise for such tomfoolery.

jc

Sleepy

Well, considering Bush has had more influence on our lives than our own Taoiseach in the past 4 years, I think we should have a VOTE in the American election, never mind an address for some redneck that's going to vote for His Monkeyness anyway.

and thats even before we look at how well/badly informed some non-American is likely to be in offering an opinion....

Well, given that we have a free media, it could be argued that most Europeans would be better informed about American politics than your average Fox News watching American.

dahamsta

Sand wrote:

Theyll be just as annoyed and irritated by lectures from abroad.

We don't all "lecture" like yourself Sand.

adam

bonkey

Sleepy wrote:

Well, considering Bush has had more influence on our lives than our own Taoiseach in the past 4 years, I think we should have a VOTE in the American election, never mind an address for some redneck that's going to vote for His Monkeyness anyway.

Sure.

And such thinking would also lead us to conclude that the US has the right to interfere in the political indepenence of any nation who's decisions will affect teh US. And seeing as the US interests span so much of the developed world....

So may I take it that you'd support US interference in any and all elections that they deem to be of importance to US interests?

Or is it ok when you want to do it to them, but not ok when they want to do it to others?

Well, given that we have a free media, it could be argued that most Europeans would be better informed about American politics than your average Fox News watching American.

You have got to be kidding me.

You don't seriously believe that, do you?

For a start, the media in Europe is no more "free" than in the US. Perhaps slightly less partisan, but no more "free".

Secondly, the Americans have proportionally similar amounts of access to that HINTERNET thingy....you know....the one that so many of us use to find more details on whats really going on?

Thirdly, where exactly are these freer European media-types going to get the information about the US from? From the same sources that have made the US media "non-free"? From the US media itself?

Fourthly, the average European probably knows as much or as little as the average American about the election. Just because you may hang out in a societal sub-group who likes to think it knows whats going on doesn't mean that the average Joe in the street has more of a clue when the street is East of the Atlantic rather than west of it.

Fifthly, don't assume that just because some American votes in a way you find unfathomable that it must be because they are uneducated about the issues. They may have different priorities, and/or different beliefs.

Sixthly, have you looked at some of the nutcases that people in Europe vote for? You're telling me that these are the actions of a more enlightened or better-informed people? Hell, just look at the last few referenda in Ireland. Virtually every single time one came about, we had article after article trying to show that huge numbers of people just didn't fully understand the issues.

Finally, while it might make good news to show how many Americans may not be aducated about their own system, its highly unlikely that "x% of Eu citizens don't know enough about the US elections" really would sell copy....and even our "free" media needs to stay in a job.

I mean...come on. I'm as criticial of the US as the next guy, but I would never claim that most Europeans are more educated on a US internal issue than the average American.

Some are, sure....and many of the rest will have made up their minds on the small handful of information that they have regarding what they think are key issues (like the war in Iraq) and base their decision on that.....just like those "underinformed" US citizens will do.

jc

Redleslie2

The Guardian reports that reactions from Ohio to the "tea sipping, yellow toothed, worse than the Taliban, meddling socialist pricks" attempts to influence opinion have been mixed to say the least. I particularly liked this one:

"KEEP YOUR ****IN' LIMEY HANDS OFF OUR ELECTION. HEY, ****HEADS, REMEMBER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR? REMEMBER THE WAR OF 1812? WE DIDN'T WANT YOU, OR YOUR POLITICS HERE, THAT'S WHY WE KICKED YOUR ASSES OUT. FOR THE 47% OF YOU WHO DON'T WANT PRESIDENT BUSH, I SAY THIS ... TOUGH ****!

PROUD AMERICAN VOTING FOR BUSH!"

mike65

Operation Clark County backfires...

From the telegraph

The Guardian yesterday ran up the white flag and called a halt to "Operation Clark County", the newspaper's ambitious scheme to recruit thousands of readers to persuade American voters in a swing state to kick out President George W Bush in next month's election.


The cancellation of the project came 24 hours after the first of some 14,000 letters from Guardian readers began arriving in Clark County. The missives led to widespread complaints about foreign interference in a US election.

It also prompted a surge of indignant local voters calling the county's Republican party offering to volunteer for Mr Bush.

The paper said it had closed the website where readers collected an address to write to and had abandoned plans to take four "winners" to visit voters in Clark County. Instead, the group would be taken to the "more tranquil" area of Washington.

Albert Scardino, the paper's executive editor for news, simultaneously denied and conceded that an early halt had been called to the project. "It is roaringly, successfully completed. It has been an overwhelming triumph," he said.

He then acknowledged that no more addresses were being distributed, blaming attacks on The Guardian website by Right-wing hackers.

"If we had not had the technical problem of the assault we would have completed the distribution of names in orderly fashion," he said. "We were able to give fewer addresses [of voters in Clark County] than we hoped. There were 14,000 names and addresses sent out. We would like to have made it possible to reach another 42,000 people."

The scheme seemed to backfired from the start as the reactions of the first recipients varied from indifference to anger and even alarm.

The surrender was announced in a lengthy "mea culpa" by Ian Katz, the G2 editor at The Guardian, who dreamed up the scheme.

He began with a lengthy denunciation of the American Right for over-reacting to his scheme, and painted his project as the victim of its own success, after many thousands of readers wrote to Clark County voters.

Further down the piece it became clear that Mr Katz was calling it quits. "Somewhere along the line, though, the good-humoured spirit of the enterprise got lost in translation," he wrote.

There had been mounting evidence that urging foreigners to send anti-Bush letters to Clark County - an isolated slice of the rural mid-West - was only hurting Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate.

One senior local politician, speaking off the record to avoid offending his neighbours, said: "They picked the wrong county for many reasons. One is, we're very parochial. When people talk about The Guardian of London, they think you mean London, Ohio, which is in the next-door county. Another is, we have some issues with literacy round here."

Mr Katz acknowledged that an ever-growing number of Democrats, among them Sharon Manitta, the spokesman in Britain for Democrats Abroad, tried warning The Guardian: "This will certainly garner more votes for George Bush."

Mr Katz wrote yesterday that the paper had considered the possibility, but "we didn't believe it". He insisted: "Folks in Clark County itself have best recognised the spirit of the enterprise. Local media coverage has been consistently fair and good humoured."

"Good-humoured" headlines in the local newspaper, the Springfield News-Sun have included "Butt Out Brits, voters say" and "Trashing letter campaign" - a reference to the fact that the first woman to receive a letter from a Guardian reader, Beverly Coale, threw it away, fearing it was from a terrorist.

Karen Henschen, a member of the executive committee of the Clark County Democratic party, said scrapping the project was "probably the best thing they could do".

The end of the scheme comes as a relief to Linda Rosicka, the director of the Clark County board of elections, who has been fielding dozens of interview requests from the world's media.

Yet there is one last Guardian letter Mrs Rosicka would still like to see - one containing a cheque for $25 (about £13), which the newspaper still owes her for its purchase of the county's electoral roll.

"I was nice and made the file available, because their reporter said he was right on deadline," she said. "They said the cheque is in the mail. As of this morning, it still hasn't arrived, and it's been more than a week."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1329858,00.html

Guardian spin

Mike.

dahamsta

Where did the piece you quoted come from Mike?

Sparks

bonkey wrote:

Or is it ok when you want to do it to them, but not ok when they want to do it to others?

Um, JC, to be fair - the US has a track record of using methods a bit more direct than grassroots letter-writing campaigns to influence foreign elections! While I think it may well achieve the opposite of what it was intended to do, I think this is right up there with the Daily Show - it's got a serious point behind it, but it was mostly meant as a prank.

ionapaul

Idiots interfering in democratic process in foreign country causes backlash? Big surprise there. The obvious outcome that was predicted with certainly before this 'operation' began is that it would push those in the middle into voting for Bush out of spite and in reaction to the British/Irish/whatever idiots...

mike65

dahamsta wrote:

Where did the piece you quoted come from Mike?

Oops, the Torygraph, sorry. Yes they are biased proberly!

Mike.

dahamsta

I wonder did any of the people responding so... vehemently, actually read the Guardian follow-ups in G2? Or even follow the link in Mike's post - which wasn't connected to the unattributed article above it - to see that not all Americans were equally... vehement?

Sparks wrote:

Um, JC, to be fair - the US has a track record of using methods a bit more direct than grassroots letter-writing campaigns to influence foreign elections!

They're paying spammers now to "get the word out" about these "grassroots" campaigns. I received one this morning on a scraped address with "John Kerry Lied On NBC" or somesuch in the subject, which linked via a tracker to an alleged Vietnam vet's website, which in turned linked to that "embracing bethany" (or whatever) website.

It's shameless astroturfing that many Americans won't see through, not because of a lack of intelligence, but simply because they've been brainwashed by the partisan media over there.

adam

bonkey

Sparks wrote:

Um, JC, to be fair - the US has a track record of using methods a bit more direct than grassroots letter-writing campaigns to influence foreign elections!

So? Are you saying that interference in foreign elections is ok, as long as you interfere "properly" ????

Sorry....I still don't buy it. I honestly believe that if people here started receiving emails from US citizens extolling that they vote in a certain direction in some upcoming EU-relevant referendum (for example) that people would be outraged that the Americans were butting in (yet again) where they had no bloody business doing it.

Maybe I'm wrong, and people would be a lot more sanguine about it, and just shrug it off....but I don't believe so.

While I think it may well achieve the opposite of what it was intended to do,

Depends on how cynical you are about what it was intended to do

I think this is right up there with the Daily Show - it's got a serious point behind it, but it was mostly meant as a prank.

The Daily Show makes no attempt to disguise that its a comedy / p1sstake. Thats a pre-requisite for successful "comedy with a point" in my book.

Redleslie2

bonkey wrote:

So? Are you saying that interference in foreign elections is ok, as long as you interfere "properly" ????

Yes it is ok as it's legal isn't it? Until the US government decides that it's against the law for foreigners to communicate with its citizens without authorisation. I met a few americans on holiday this year and brought up the subject of the election. Is that kind of interference ok? All of them were going to vote Kerry anyway, even one guy who said he never bothered voting before, but that's beside the point.

wheels of ire

If anyone has read the G2 article, they might have noticed that a lot of the abusive replies had a lot in common.I would imagine than an analysis would show that we get the same abusive phrases used a lot. What does 'panty-waisted' mean? And I do so love the ignorance of their own history.In particular, the lack of awareness of the debt of gratitude owed to the French for fighting the Brits, and using their Navy and soldiery to do so.
To return to the replies to the Guardian,the tactic of coordinated attack-dog responses was originally devised by the rabid pro-Likud lobby, who seemed to have a whole team of people ready to denounce any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism.We now see the same tactic in use on various fora and boards when anyone criticises W.

sovtek

Redleslie2 wrote:

The Guardian reports that reactions from Ohio to the "tea sipping, yellow toothed, worse than the Taliban, meddling socialist pricks" attempts to influence opinion have been mixed to say the least. I particularly liked this one:

"KEEP YOUR ****IN' LIMEY HANDS OFF OUR ELECTION. HEY, ****HEADS, REMEMBER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR? REMEMBER THE WAR OF 1812? WE DIDN'T WANT YOU, OR YOUR POLITICS HERE, THAT'S WHY WE KICKED YOUR ASSES OUT. FOR THE 47% OF YOU WHO DON'T WANT PRESIDENT BUSH, I SAY THIS ... TOUGH ****!

PROUD AMERICAN VOTING FOR BUSH!"

I would hazard a guess he also wants the tea sipping, yellow toothed, worse than the Taliban, meddling socialists pricks out of Basra...the only place in Iraq that's even close to holding it together.

wheels of ire

Good point Sovtek. I forgot the obsession with teeth, what's that all about? A perfect smile is more important than the ability to think logically?
And the failure to notice the presence of their Brit allies is intriguing.Perhaps these guys think that the kilted Black Watch are the Gay Gordons?

sovtek

wheels of ire wrote:

Good point Sovtek. I forgot the obsession with teeth, what's that all about? A perfect smile is more important than the ability to think logically?

Crap like that is the reason I stay away from my fellow countrymen's message boards these days. It usually starts with an half assed attempt at an argument by spewing garbage they heard the night before on The O'Reilly Factor and then spirals into tirades about personal traits that communists/terrorist sympathizers...French...etc etc...have in common

(if you don't believe me try it....www.daily-web.info/forums) *evil grin*

And the failure to notice the presence of their Brit allies is intriguing.Perhaps these guys think that the kilted Black Watch are the Gay Gordons?

Or the ones they often kill by accident. It's a wonder that any country would participate in any war started by the US ever again.
That said I agree that the Guardian didn't think this one out properly. Or maybe they don't understand how alot of Americans are indoctrinated.
Of course it's ok when Bush (Monsanto) wants to tell Europe what to do with their GM food policy or who should or shouldn't be in the EU.
I have tried to just question friends back and home who and why they are voting for next week. Some of them won't even speak to me now.