The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #114690 Message #2449185
Posted By: Alice
24-Sep-08 - 04:06 PM
Thread Name: BS: Ghost wrote letters to editor for McCain
Subject: BS: Ghost wrote letters to editor for McCain
This report needs MORE MEDIA ATTENTION. Please pass this info on to your friends. It's an admission by Dutch newspaper columnist Margriet Oostveen.
When you click on this link, click again in upper right of page to go to the article. - Alice
++++++++
Editor's note: The following article was originally published on Sept. 13 in Dutch in the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, where Margriet Oostveen writes a weekly column called "Message From Washington." Oostveen has volunteered in various political campaigns and then written about the experience. She has worked for both John McCain and Barack Obama in this election cycle. Click here to see guidelines, talking points and sample letters the McCain campaign gave her.
I ghost-wrote letters to the editor for the McCain campaign Margriet Oostveen. Sept. 24, 2008 | "You can be whoever you want to be," says an inviting Phil Tuchman. "You can be a beggar or a millionaire. A mom or a husband. Whatever. You decide!"
I volunteer in political campaigns now and then. After a series of outings for Obama and a first mission as a phone banker for John McCain, I returned to McCain's headquarters in Arlington, Va. The offer was too alluring to delay -- they wanted to put me into action as a ghostwriter. Next to commercials and phone banking, writing letters to the editor is the most important method of the McCain campaign to attract voters. At least that is what's written in the guidelines that McCain campaign worker Phil Tuchman presents to me.