Quoting a line of the American Declaration of Independence -- the one about "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" -- British national newspaper
The Guardian has launched an effort to get its readers to connect directly with swing voters in Clark County, Ohio, to "influence how a very important vote will be cast."
In its "Operation Clark County," the paper's website
has built an online database containing contact information of registered independent voters.
Guardian readers are asked to retrieve the information and compose a personal letter to "explain how U.S. policies affect you personally, and the rest of the world more generally, and who you hope they will send to the White House." There's a limit of one address per reader, and one reader per address.
This idea is so far outside the box that I don't know how to react. It's certainly a creative use of the Internet to facilitate conversation about public policy, something that might fit nicely into
Jay Rosen's model of civic journalism. It also could be interpreted as foreign meddling in U.S. politics, and
in a note to readers The Guardian warns: "It's worth considering at the outset how counterproductive this might all be, especially if approached undiplomatically."
If you don't want to bother with registration niggles on...
