McCain Campaign Offers Rewards For Turn-Key Comments

According to a story at the Washington Post, John McCain's presidential campaign is offering more than moral suasion to fire people up for a McCain presidency; they're also offering ready-made snippets of rhetoric for interested supporters to supply under their own names in public comments to online news sources and forums. Such pre-written commentary by itself is neither new nor necessarily nefarious, but it seems a bit off-kilter that prolific commenters are eligible for rewards — not just campaign swag like hats and stickers, but higher-ticket items like a ride with McCain on his campaign bus. Probably a script could be whipped up to compare the canned suggestions on the site with "grassroots" comments on political news sites around the web.

Comments

Am I missing something?

[meta-monkey]

I don't see the "canned suggestions." There's a position paper, but it looks like the McCain campaign is just encouraging people to make comments and discuss issues on blog sites, not telling them what to say.

Re:Am I missing something?

[Abcd1234]

Did you miss the Today's Talking Points links? Or did you actively ignore them?

Re:Am I missing something?

[Jimithing DMB]

It's worse than that though. It isn't only timothy's Slashdot story that refers to "Today's Talking Points" as "sample comments" it's the original Washington Post article.

I find it quite a stretch to suggest that the talking points are somehow given as examples of good comments. They are very dry and read as though they are suggestions of topics a McCain supporter might talk about. They don't look at all like anything that would be well received on any message board. Hence, talking points.

All political campaigns do this so there's no news here. Either WaPo is out of stories or the author was just looking to write something bad about McCain's campaign. That's beyond mere bias. That's pushing an agenda.

As for timothy, he's either a sucker for falling for this blatant anti-McCain non-story or he's also pushing an agenda. It could be both too. Perhaps he turned his bullshit detector off because he's for Obama and against McCain. He wouldn't be the first person to do that and he won't be the last. But I think at the very least he should update the story with a correction. The "facts" presented in it are at the very least quite a stretch if not an outright lie.

Re:Am I missing something?

[rtechie]

On this page, the second link on the "Talking Points" section:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/relief.htm

we find a list of bullet points like this one:

# John McCain believes we should send a strong message to world markets. Under his plan, the United States will be telling oil producing countries and oil speculators that our dependence on foreign oil will come to an end - and the impact will be lower prices at the pump.

The site doesn't explicitly SAY to use them in comments, but it's certainly a strong encouragement. I'd also point out that most of these "talking points", like the one above, say nothing substantive. Weirdly, on the same page he has these talking points:

# John McCain will repeal the 54 cents per gallon tax on imported sugar-based ethanol, increasing competition, and lowering prices of gasoline at the pump.

# John McCain will roll back corn-based ethanol mandates, which are contributing to the rising cost of food.

which are contradictory.

It's not about copy-paste

[tobiah]

I think you're right that McCain's site isn't suggesting they copy and paste the comments. The issue here is the rewards system, and perhaps the blog-targetting (specific blogs are listed for users to comment in).
The WP article has some good feedback from politicos on the problems with this approach and possible solutions. In particular that the bloggers should be advised to use full disclosure ("I am a McCain action alert participant") and make sure their posts are relevant to the conversation.

Re:It seems to me

[PopeRatzo]

Possibly Obama's just a slicker liar...For some reason, the television camera simply adores Obama; he's more relaxed and comfortable on camera than Phil Donahue.

Maybe the reason is that he actually is more relaxed and comfortable. When you don't have to sell your soul for a political office, it's much easier to be relaxed.

I think this idea of the McCain Campaign paying trolls to place comments on blogs is reasonable, considering Senator McCain has not yet learned how to "get on the Internet".

Re:Vote for McCain

[eln]

Old and tired photoshop.

Come on man, you can do better than that.

Re:Republicans know how to win.

[NekSnappa]

Actually the inauguration date is January 20th

Re:It seems to me

[bckrispi]

It's more that they haven't grasped the full implications of things like YouTube.

They should've learned this lesson two years ago. In 2005, Virginia Senator George Allen was the presumptive presidential front runner for the 2008 election. All it took was one viral video of him saying Macacca to tip his reelection bid to Jim Webb. One video cost him his senate seat, as well as a stab at the White House.

Re:This is going to end badly

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation +1
    30% Insightful
    40% Troll
    30% Underrated

Yep, asking for a link so we can think for ourselves is a "Troll". If the mod is a Republican in fullon denial clampdown, as their sky finally starts falling for real.

ignoring the elephant in the room?

[plasmacutter]

McCain and Obama on geek issues. This also covers candidates who have been eliminated from the race.

Isn't this kind of ignoring the Elephant in the room?

According to obama's page, he still thinks the information age will be about "selling bits" as if theyre property.

So now you have a real gamble..

elect someone who is incompetent with tech and hope he either ignores it or utterly fails in the mass initiative against freedom of the internet and consumer rights.

-OR-

elect someone who has shown remarkable savvy and grasp of technology, and has sold out to the DMCA.

Protect American Intellectual Property Abroad: The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that in 2005, more than nine of every 10 DVDs sold in China were illegal copies. The U.S. Trade Representative said 80 percent of all counterfeit products seized at U.S. borders still come from China. Barack Obama will work to ensure intellectual property is protected in foreign markets, and promote greater cooperation on international standards [HELLO ACTA] that allow our technologies to compete everywhere.
Protect Intellectual Property at Home: Intellectual property is to the digital age what physical goods were to the industrial age. [No DMCA reform in our time! hello new "drug war"]Barack Obama believes we need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.

Re:This is going to end badly

[that this is not und]

Just check out 90% of the comments on political website forums.

Don't just take this guy's word for it. Go to some of the sites. Check out lucianne.com, freerepublic.com, dailykos.org and democraticunderground.com. Read the stuff the cranks on those sites are spewing out on the forums. The best thing that either campaign can do is provide nice secluded blogs to contain those nuts until after the election. Nutroots indeed.

Re:It seems to me

[PopeRatzo]

Obama sold his soul to the Chicago Political Machine decades ago.

You don't have a clue. Next time you're here in Chicago, come see me. I'll buy you lunch in the diner on Washington St. around the corner from City Hall and introduce you to some people who will, I guarantee, that Obama absolutely did not "sell his soul to the Chicago Political Machine". In fact, they are still pissed about it.

However, they're smart enough to know a real leader when they see one, so they actually either got out of the way or lent a hand to Barack's work here in town.

I can also introduce you to some of Obama's former colleagues at the Univ of Chicago Law School who, I guarantee, can convince you that Obama's grasp of and love for the Constitution is so strong, so deep, and that his administrative skills are so tight, that his Justice Department will be one of the best. At least as long as he can purge the Monica Goodling political operatives that were put on the job after they signed loyalty oaths to the Republican Party.

Now that that's out of the way, why don't you go fuck yourself?

Re:The Issue: Jobs for America

[ginbot462]

> The reason this site is 'overwhelmingly liberal' is that /. has a global audience. Not just Alabama.

I'm from Alabama you insensitive clod! No seriously, I am! (Huntsville to be precise).

And yes, I do own guns and drink whiskey and drive a four wheeler. Shit, it's fun! You can do all those glorious things and still not be a Bush lover.