No-one else appears to have commented on this, but it could just be possible that George Bush owes his win to The Guardian. They launched a campaign called “Operation Clark County” to help their readers to have a say in the US elections. The paper provided its readers with names and addresses of residents of Clark County and urged them to write them a letter suggesting they vote for Kerry.
The headline “Dear Limey assholes”, which The Guardian put on their page carrying the feedback they received from US voters, points out more eloquently than I could what a stupid idea this was!
Ohio is the state that is likely to deliver the deciding electoral college votes for Bush. Despite the loss of around 230,000 jobs in Ohio over Bush’s Presidency and the fact that the Democrats were counting on winning it, Bush actually increased his percentage of the vote. It’s safe to say that even if The Guardian’s readers weren’t decisive they were certainly influential, not just in Ohio, but in the country.
As Christopher Hitchens remarked on Radio National this morning, one reason Kerry lost is because he appeared to be talking down to people. If you’re going to talk down to people, much more effective to get foreigners to do it for you!
November 04, 2004 | Graham
George Bush to The Guardian – thanks guys
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I think Tim Blair already raised that, either in The Bulletin or on Spleenville. Again, we have the old talking down to people thing coming into play.
Comment by Darlene — November 4, 2004 @ 11:53 am
Yep, you’re right. Tim does have a short piece on it from yesterday. Anyone interested can see it at… Well, I tried to put the address in, but our spam filter stopped it, so some fascist child of unmarried parents must have added his blog url to the Moveable Type Blacklist master list. However, his post can still be accessed from the main page of http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/domain.
He must have had less to do yesterday than I did!
Comment by Graham Young — November 4, 2004 @ 12:04 pm
A very good point, and one that anyone who has any knowledge of the USA would understand. It appears that such knowledge of the US is rare in the offices of the Guardian. That said, think there is real goodwill towards the “Limeys” in much of America. But I believe that significant editorial comment in France was devoted to urging a vote for Kerry. Now that was REALLY guaranteed to attract a negative result, assuming of course that anyone read it!
Comment by Rod Coles — November 4, 2004 @ 2:10 pm