This election will probably be decided Thursday night. The electorate is at a highly unstable point right now… tied, but ready to explode. Either Bush or Kerry will win by at least 8 points.
If Kerry is seen as losing the first debate the later debates mean nothing. So all of us need to do whatever we can possibly do to shape perceptions and reporting of the debate. There will not another moment like this until election day.
With time so short and the noise level so high I think astro-turf mail is justified. Everyone PLEASE copy and send this message to every media type in America. Just add your own distinctive SUBJECT LINE (so they are all different) and your own contact information. Blast it. Spam it. Whatever it takes. (Blocs of target email addresses will be posted in this thread)
Important: because of the stupid way DU shows URLs you need to copy the shortcut and paste it in complete form into your email. If you don't know how please ask_________________________
Hi,
Here’s what we all know today:
1) During the debate Thursday night Kerry will say he hasn’t flip-flopped on Iraq
2) Many in your business will find this claim incredible because we all “know” he’s a big flip-flopper
Kerry is indeed maddening to listen to. He qualifies things in a way John Wayne never did. He talks exactly like someone who might have had a lot of positions on Iraq.
But in the world of facts he has been doggedly and maddeningly and boringly consistent on Iraq. Broken-record consistent! Have you read his Senate speech about his vote for the force authorization? It’s the same as his speeches today.
You're smart and educated. All I am asking is that during the next day or two you ask yourself, as a journalist, “Is Kerry ACTUALLY inconsistent on Iraq?” (If he isn’t it’s a dynamite man-bites-dog story, right?) I have included a link to Marc Sandlow's 9/23 Chronicle piece on this topic because it's one of the few I've seen that addresses the five W's of the "Kerry Iraq flip-flop" story
*Your Name Here
*Your contact info here SF Chronicle Thursday, September 23, 2004
Flip-flopping charge unsupported by facts
Kerry always pushed global cooperation, war as last resort
Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief
Washington -- No argument is more central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq. President Bush, seated beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said Tuesday: "My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.'' The allegation is the basis of a new Bush campaign TV ad that shows the Democratic senator from Massachusetts windsurfing to the strains of a Strauss waltz as a narrator intones: "Kerry voted for the Iraq war, opposed it, supported it and now opposes it again.'' Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/23/MNGQK8TI8O1.DTL