Many of you probably got the same email I did tonight from the Obama campaign via their "Action Wire" email loop.
In it they requested they asked us to help them put pressure on advertisers who are spending money on the stations airing the Ayers smear ad.
I followed the link to the site and participating in this email campaign couldn't be easier.
Follow me after the fold for the 1-2-3 of it.
- Visit http://my.barackobama.com/... and click the "Participate" button
- Fill out your contact information. On this page you can customize which advertisers you will be emailing or just leave them all checked (the default).
- Write/edit your letter and click send. There is already a form letter in place in the entry box and there are additional talking points in a box to the right. I strongly suggest you don't leave the form letter as-is. Receiving hundreds or thousands of letters that say the same thing simply won't be effective. Still, the form letter and the very clear talking points make it really easy to construct your own message very quickly. This is the simple note I came up with:
Your company is advertising on television stations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Virginia that are airing a illegal political attack ad from the "American Issues Project" against Barack Obama.
Major networks such as CNN and even Fox News have rightly refused to run this attack ad, but there are some local stations who are choosing to run it. Please understand that people ARE paying attention to exactly which companies are advertising on these stations.
According to federal law, the American Issues Project must comply with the rules for political organizations trying to influence an election. They are not doing this, and the American Issues Project is breaking the law. Additionally, the American Issues Project ad is full of baseless lies and re-hashed false assertions. It is designed to play into the worst biases and fears, contributing nothing of value to the public discourse.
I hope you will do the right thing and pull your ads from these stations.
Thank you.
--[cishart]
The whole thing took me less than five minutes.
Your turn!
Update: If you write a letter and feel so inclined, please share it below to help others with their letters.