This is the second diary in a series that comprise the Obama Viral Email Project. Prior diaries may be found here:
Obama Viral Email Project - Draft 1
This project grew out of a desire to do something positive for the Obama campaign, utilizing the Net roots and viral Internet marketing concepts.
To review:
The Concept
We, as a community, will compose a counter to the anti-Obama viral emails. It will contain the truth, and when we are done, we will each email it to everyone possible in our address book. We will spread it to other boards, our own personal blogs, social networking sites, and in general make this email ubiquitous throughout the net. It will also contain a plea to the sender to pass on the email, hopefully making this positive Obama virus dwarf the poorly done negative attempts that are out there.
I envision the initial authoring phase of this project to take about a week, with several draft revisions. So on or about next Friday, March 14, I hope we will have an email ready to blast. It will be important to keep the project visible, so please, if you believe the OVEP to be a worthy undertaking, recommend this diary and the others that will follow with each draft, so that we can get as much input as possible.
DO NOT WORRY ABOUT DISTRIBUTION ISSUES AT THIS PHASE OF THE PROJECT! We are only concerned with content at this point. After we compose the email, we will discuss distribution.
The Rules
More like suggestions really, and there aren't many.
- I volunteered to use my daily diary allotment for this project and to head it up. I envision that invariably we will have differences of opinion about what should be included in the email, how it should be worded, etc. Thus we need an executive editor for the project, who will make the final decision in cases of disagreement. This morning I held a caucus in my kitchen (because it was cheaper than a primary) and elected myself editor.
- The email needs to be positive and it won't do to draw attention to lies that the reader may never have heard before (thus accomplishing the goals of the anti-Obama email for them). So for example, instead of saying "Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim!", in which case the reader may say "Huh! Was there a question about him being a Muslim?", the better approach is probably, "Barack Obama is a devout Christian, who has been a member of the same Christian church for about 20 years."
- In case it's not obvious, the idea is for the community to contribute ideas for the letter in the form of comments, and then I'll incorporate these into the next draft diary.
- This really is an attempt to do something positive, so if you want to start a candidate war or some such, please go elsewhere.
- Please provide links to backup your points. It is not only important that these be verifiable truths, but that the end reader have a quick way to check them out.
- We may include a few pictures (small, screen resolution), but keep in mind that the end email should not be more than a few pages long and shouldn't tie up limited dialup bandwidth for those users (thus ticking them off). If we find we can't contain the email to a small number of pages, maybe we'll break it up into multiple emails.
- Keep it to an eighth grade level. Remember how wide and diverse the audience is.
That's it! At least for now.
Below is the current draft as it stands. I was somewhat disappointed with our showing yesterday. We didn't make the rec list, and even though there seem to be thousands of Obama supporters on DKos we only heard from a handful. Through my fault many commenters focused on distribution to the exclusion of content. We should not be fretting distribution at this time. We'll deal with that later.
Today, I hope we will get many more content contributions, complete with backup links. I also hope that everyone will tip and rec this diary so that we can get to the rec list and be more visible.
The Current Draft Email
Subject: Barack Obama. Did you Know?
There is a lot of misinformation out there about Barack Obama. A few of us, not connected to the Obama campaign in any way, decided to put together this list of facts you might not know.
- Did you know that Barack Obama is a devout Christian? He has been a member of the same UCC congregation for 20 years, and was married there to his wife Michelle in 1992.
- Did you know Barack's grandfather, a Kansas native, served in Patton's army during World War II?
- Did you know that Barack Obama often leads the US Senate in the Pledge of Allegiance?
- Did you know Obama favors transparency over secrecy in our government? He's
released his tax returns
from 2006. He's also passed legislation to allow everyone to see how their tax money is being spent. He's calling it Google for Government.
- Did you know that Barack Obama was opposed to the war in Iraq from day one? Even when such opposition might have been politically unpopular?
"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars." --Barack Obama, 2002
- Did you know that the fun-loving Senator Obama has grown so fond of his Secret Service detail, that he invited them to his home to watch the SuperBowl and plays basketball with them before primaries?
- Did you know that despite the grueling schedule of running for President, Senator Obama manages to make his family a priority, making time to do things like pick out a Christmas tree with his wife and two young daughters, or hurrying home to spend Valentine's Day with them?
- Did you know that Barack Obama has been a legislator longer than Senator Clinton?
- Did you know that Barack Obama has co-sponsored a bill increase child support enforcement by helping governments collect a projected $13 billion in payments from those who don’t fulfill their parental responsibilities.
- Did you know that after graduating with honors from Harvard Law School, Barack practiced civil rights law and also taught Constitutional Law for 10 years at one of the nation's best law schools
- Did you know that Barack is a member of all of these Senate Committees: Foreign Relations; Veteran's Affairs; Health, Education, Labor & Pensions; Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
- Did you know that Barack Obama has a 100% positive rating from the major pro-choice groups and has spoken out forcefully on women's rights issues?
I know I've missed some contributions from yesterday. Some I still need to get. Some need either to be reworded in the "Did you know" format or have links looked up. Anyone who can help with this please step right up.
Today I hope we will receive many comments of the form "Did you know..." and with backup links. We're getting there.
Also, please remember that although content from here will eventually be broadcast far and wide, you don't need to go to any other web site to contribute content to this project. There seemed to be some confusion on that yesterday.
That's it. Have at it. Remember. "Out of the many, one."