Posted on 10/21/2004 6:41:52 PM PDT by blam
Guardian calls it quits in Clark County fiasco
By David Rennie in Youngstown
(Filed: 22/10/2004)
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."
Frankly, after reading it, you probably couldn't tell the difference. The talking points of the hate-Bush/hate-America Left and the hate-America Jihadists are strikingly similar.
Obviously of the Teresa Heinz-Kerry/Michael Moore school of demeaning Americans, and he gets extra points because he is trying to make us look bad in front of foreigners. Moreover, I would doubt that there is a literacy problem in Clark County.
Yeah, for the Bush campaign apparently!!
That's why we kicked their butts once before, ain't it?
And the Republican Party in Clark County agree!
Egad, what a bunch of friggin sillies they are! Even if I tried, I couldn't think of a single thing that would piss off a bunch of red-blooded American more than having a bunch of prissy-faced limeys taking the time to "instruct" them on the nice way to vote.
It's impossible for these Euro snob types to even begin to think that we believe we're fully capable of thinking for ourselves.
Deciding, correctly, that readers of The Guardian are losers.
"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."
Weird, words fail. Why would those people even care. They have enough of their own problems to be bothered with our elections. When silly newspapers try to be relevant outside their scope.
I'd like to choke those f***** into the next age, if I could. [/rage]
I wasn't aware the electorate list could just be given out, willy-nilly, as it were! Isn't there some sort of privacy issue being violated here????? I don't care if she's a Republican, she should be read the riot act!
This was a mix up of sorts, and I cannot remembe how it went. But The Guardian mixed up because what they got wasn't undecided voters but some other category.
An obvious point: Letters from Guardian readers arrived in the US ahead of that letter with the check, so The Guardian lied. The check was NOT in the mail.
I used that list to look up the available matching e-mail addresses, since e-mail is free, compared to the cost of printing and mailing letters to the same folks. So yes, I can guarantee that those lists of names and addresses are public records and can be purchased.
Congressman Billybob
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."
Every time I think Democrats cannot be any more snobbish, they prove me wrong. I wish this piece is distributed to every voter in Clark County to show them what Democrats think of them.
Madivan, have you been doing some freelance work?
http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/
You can look up anybody you know in NC and find out their party affiliation. I looked up a few people I know and then decided not to look up my co-workers. I'd rather not know, if you know what I mean.
Clearly, a senior, elitist Democrat politician.
By the way, His Parochialness should be reminded that The Guardian is actually of Manchester, not London.
I'd like to smack the living s%$t out of Mr Katz for trying to influence a foreign election.
Lying EURO RATS!
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