I ghost-wrote letters to the editor for the McCain campaign

Salon.com

Sept. 24, 2008 | "You can be whoever you want to be," says an inviting Phil Tuchman. "You can be a beggar or a millionaire. A mom or a husband. Whatever. You decide!"

I volunteer in political campaigns now and then. After a series of outings for Obama and a first mission as a phone banker for John McCain, I returned to McCain's headquarters in Arlington, Va. The offer was too alluring to delay -- they wanted to put me into action as a ghostwriter. Next to commercials and phone banking, writing letters to the editor is the most important method of the McCain campaign to attract voters. At least that is what's written in the guidelines that McCain campaign worker Phil Tuchman presents to me.

This is a little disturbing...

"Her (Palin) biggest plus to me is that, besides being amazingly smart and qualified, she managed to remain a woman like us. She is the PTA hockey moms. She is the working mothers of special needs children. She is every caring mother of a challenging teenager."

Her pregnant daughter Bristol (17) is not a talking point. A talking point is her son Track (19), who will be deployed to Iraq.

"And most of all, she is just like any mother of a child who deploys to Iraq in the service of this country."

Now we are getting somewhere. I look around. I type:

"My son, too, is there."

Oh god, you liar. Now build up suspense. New paragraph.

This is just sick and another example of how the GOP will sit there and politicize this war and the "made up" lives of "real" Americans.

What I don't understand is how they think that ghost letters to the editor or even posting smear threads here on ATSNN could be in any real or meaningful way profitable for them.

It does because idiots who read letters to the editor to help shape their own opinions are the still 18% of voters who are still "undecided".

This makes my head hurt...

[edit on 24-9-2008 by TruthWithin]