The latest anti-Kerry meme is that a pro-Democratic group has supposedly made a practice of hiring convicted felons to knock on the doors of potential voters in swing states. Newsmax.com, everyone’s favorite fair and objective news site, calls the group “Crooks for Kerry.”
Except, a couple problems: One, the felons worked for a 527 organization called America Coming Together, which has nothing to do officially with the Kerry campaign proper. It’s embarrassing for ACT, sure, but why this should rub off on Kerry himself, I don’t see.
Secondly, campaigns’ use of criminal-types for performing menial tasks is certainly nothing new at all. When I worked on a campaign in New Jersey a few years ago our opponents made regular practice of employing local homeless crackheads to put up and take down signs, and when one made the mistake of walking by our headquarters, some of my co-workers chased him with a baseball bat.
The other nifty campaign tool I learned from that experience? That campaigns throughout the country have long employed attractive 16-year-old girls to pass out fliers on street corners to interested voters. According to my then-boss, the strategy was devised by Lee Atwater and later copied by James Carville, and has been the decisive factor in at least one presidential election.
Posted by Stephen Silver at June 25, 2004 03:49 PMOk, I'll bite. Which one?
Posted by: Jeremy Wahlman at June 25, 2004 08:33 PM