I just got an emailed action alert from the Obama campaign, and I thought I would use my diary today to put a spotlight on it, on a new ad campaign attached, and on my own letter to various editors that was inspired therefrom. As you're watching and/or reading, please take a moment to formulate your own letters to the editor, by yourself or through the Obama Action Wire as I have done, because 5 minutes is not too much to ask when your very future is at stake!
The text of the action alert is as follows:
American families were rocked last week by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But with John McCain and his lobbyists in charge, it could have been even worse.
In a recent interview, McCain suggested deregulating health insurance companies and handing them an unsupervised blank check -- in his own words -- just "as we have done over the last decade in banking."
His policies have made taxpayers responsible for the largest federal bailout in history -- we can't let John McCain and his Washington cronies sell out American health care.
Our new ad exposes McCain's call for reckless deregulation.
Here is the ad - rather short, but still very compelling in my opinion!
And lastly, the only real and creative content of this diary (which I freely admit), is my letter to the editors below. Feel free to cannibalize is for inspiration, as if you send it far and wide as I have, I'm sure some of us will get published - and even if it's only one vote per newspaper that we win in so doing, that vote matters on 11/4!
To Columbus Dispatch, Springfield News-Sun, Dayton Daily News, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Advocate, Eagle-Gazette
Subject John McCain's health 'plan'.
Message Dear Sir,
John McCain has repeatedly championed his 'maverick' credentials with regard to deregulation - just last week he proudly announced that he would like to take health care down the same dark road that has destroyed the American banking industry, by removing restrictions and regulations that protect the American consumer.
McCain has spent his whole many-many-many decades long career championing deregulation at the expense of the American public. He wants to risk the safety of millions of children, women, and men in order to line the pockets of his pals in the Big Pharmaceuticals industry,subjecting them to the same horrors that homeowners and stockholders have experienced by consequence of the banking 'deregulation' fiasco.
The vast majority of McCain's campaign managers and paid staff members are themselves lobbyists, despite claims of being reformers, and his economic policy advisor, the man who wrote his economic 'plan' is none other than Senator Phil Gramm, the man that many argue is principally responsible for the entire economic catastrophe that we face now, thanks to his relentless lobbying for corporate fat-cats instead of for the American people.
By stark contrast, Barack Obama hasn’t taken any money from lobbyists or special interests throughout his campaign. He’s responsible to the American people who own this movement - his recovery plan puts Main Street first, not Wall Street. Barack Obama’s plan also requires that other nations, who have a huge stake in our economy must join us in helping to secure financial markets, whereas McCain's farcical 'plan' gives them, and corporate executives, an absolutely free ride.
Barack Obama does not believe in blank checks - John McCain lives by them. Maybe when you have thirteen vehicles, seven houses, and hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, you can afford to be ill-informed about the consequences of this economic mismanagement, but we Americans cannot afford it.
We cannot afford a single day more of this, let alone four additional years.