I Write Letters

I work for the Obama campaign in my county, which for the most part means making phone calls and putting data in spreadsheets, but today, I joined up with our office's letter-writing group, writing letters to the editor at local papers.

The guy in charge is cool - He's a Vietnam veteran, former criminology professor, worked for the Department of Education at some point or another. He wants us to use catchy slogans and always make sure we address Obama as "Senator Obama."

So I'll probably have to do quite a bit of work on this before I send it off. Because I wrote a letter today that, rather than being catchy and slogan-full, was just poking fun at McCain. But I'm posting it here, because I like it.

Let's ignore for a moment the perplexing fact that McCain's "Obama as a celebrity" ads redefined the ability to inspire millions of people as a negative quality in a political candidate. As a young, first-time voter, what confuses me about these ads is, who are they aimed at? Maybe he thinks that there are scores of just-registered 18-year-olds sitting in front of MTV, waiting for an ad that uses the name-calling strategies they recognize from grade school. It's a reasonable strategy.You'd think that the candidate who promised a "respectful campaign" would prefer ads about his famous maverick record, but then young voters might fact-check and find that he's voted with Bush 95% of the time and that he's changed position on virtually every major issue in this election. John McCain doesn't stand on his record because he can't. And besides, respectful campaigns just don't get as many hits on YouTube.

Here's the original ad, btw.