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?

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

[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.

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?