Britain and Ohio

Perhaps you remember the British campaign before the election to influence Ohio voters. The Guardian, one of Britain's leading newspapers spearheaded a campaign to have British citizens send letters to Ohio voters to convince them to vote for Kerry. At the time, the media reported on this campaign quite negatively. The spin was that Americans don't like other countries interfering in our business and that this would probably effect the Democrats negatively. I guess I maybe believed that too. As it turns out though, Clark County, Ohio, where the British targeted voters, was the only county in Ohio that voted for Bush in 2000 to vote for Kerry in 2004. This according to the February issue of Harper's.

So I guess it worked. The lesson for me isn't so much that in 2008 citizens of the world should flood the US with letters convincing us to vote Democrat, not that I would oppose that. Rather, it's to be doubly aware of falling for right-wing claptrap through the media. We are bombarded with that so often, even the most vigilant can fall for it every now and then.