We have a gift for everyone running for office who wants to keep Iraq in the news:
This is a large illustration of a check written from John Ensign to George Bush for "unlimited money and lives." During his press conference yesterday, Jack went over to the wall and wrote "VOID" on it. It was an electric moment. This is exactly what we're doing this year: we're voiding the blank check that our Republican representatives have written to the President for our national wealth and the lives of our sons and daughters.
You are cordially invited to copy this idea for your own campaigns. More after the jump.
This is easy to do on your own. Our most excellent graphic designer cranked it out in 30 minutes. Try to use a program like Illustrator that will look good when it's blown up to this size. The things you'll want to change if you do it yourself are:
(1) The Nevada address;
(2) The signature (use one from the candidate's website or just make one up -- it's OK, this is not a legal check);
(3) name printed under the signature; and
(4) the line of "magnetic ink" type at the bottom. What you see here are the percentages of the time that Ensign agreed with Bush in the first four years of his term. The other idea we considered was "$6300 per second for Iraq," which Nick Kristoff calculates is how much we are now spending on the occupation.
Here in Las Vegas, it costs $11 to print this off at Kinkos. A red marker would be better to write "void." I'd love to see every candidate in the U.S. voiding one of these checks every time they speak in public. Then, come next January, I'd like to see them do it for real.
Best wishes from the Carter campaign, and to the several people from DKos that are coming out here in the next few ways to ride this wave through to the end! (We have some nice Congressional races and a gubernatorial race for you to enjoy while you're here.) -- G@C4NV