SwingWriting

One Last Project

2004-11-01T08:41:00.000-05:00

Well, this is the end of the road for the Bush-Kerry campaign. Two days left, including today. What will we do with our time on Thursday? (leaving aside Wednesday for satisfaction or, in the case of a Bush win, mourning and or contemplation of what country to move to.

There's one final project that folks may want to take part in, which was passed along to the SwingWriters courtesy our friend Joey Fishkin. The Kerry campaign has set up a mechanism for you to call people in swing states and encourage them to vote. You can access it at http://calls.johnkerry.com. I would strongly encourage anyone with extra cellphone minutes, free time, anything-- to make these calls.

On the flip side, I also want to put a note in that given all the hysteria about how this is the "most important election of our lifetimes" (which it is, but come on-- the claim is a little tiresome and furthermore overwrought) that we should approach it as such. If you DON'T live in a swing state and really want to see this country change, not just in the next four years (which it probably won't all that much, even though things will definitely be better under Kerry), think about voting your conscience in New York, in California, in Rhode Island, in Texas, in Wyoming-- places that are safely in the hands of one candidate or another where you actually have the privilege of "throwing your vote away"--i.e. expressing your genuine opinion and pushing the political parties to meet it better, since your vote doesn't really count in our system anyway. I haven't decided yet how I'm going to vote, but I'm heavily leaning towards either writing in a candidate or more likely, voting for Cobb (I live in New York). If everybody did this it would be a disaster for Kerry, but everyone's not going to do this, so if you're dissatisfied with the general state of affairs and not just Bush, think about voting your conscience.

But, just the same, make those swing state calls :)

I'm Going Nuts...

2004-10-30T09:56:00.000-04:00

with this election. The latest polls national polls are really close--possibly Bush with a very slight lead (around 1%). The downside though, is that the trend seems to be in favor of Bush in a lot of swing states. From Minnesota to Michigan to New Jersey to Hawaii, a lot of states that voted for Gore and were seemingly safe for Kerry turned into swing states or at least sent signs of worry over the past few weeks. That the battleground is shifting further on to Kerry's turf (again, it's hard to trust the polls-- even the reliable ones) seems to be really bad news-- it might be another repeat of the last election where Bush wins without winning the popular vote. Check out http://www.electoral-vote.com and http://race2004.net for polls.

Of course, there's always the wild card of how much energy reality-based people are going to put into Get Out The Vote efforts over the next few days. And then there's the wildcard of how much better organized the Republic Get Out The Vote will be in this election than in the last one. God...I hate this country sometimes.

My congenital worrying and pessimism has me feeling woozy (I try to restrict my intake of election news), particularly with this new Bin Laden tape. I haven't read all the coverage of it, but, in terms of the election the plus point for its impact might be that it wasn't a screaming tirade that would frighten voters and cut down on undecided voters who would switch to Kerry. The huge downside is obviously that the tape came out at all. I have a bad feeling that when people see it, they're not going to be reminded of why Bin Laden wasn't captured as much as that he exists and wants to kill them.

Sample Generic Query Letter 1: Please edit

2004-09-24T18:35:00.000-04:00

Below is a query letter I drafted. It's also posted on the Yahoogroups site for SwingWriting. This is a pretty rough draft and needs a lot of fact checking and spicing up, but it's one angle that someone could go with if they modified it to fit the issues of the area they were writing for. By the way, I'm really not kidding about the fact checking:). Structural and content suggestions and pointers to good stats would be more helpful at this point than line edits, but I'll take what I can get.

---

Dear Editor,

I'm writing to propose an opinion piece on the upcoming Presidential election. The article will argue that voters in [INSERT STATE OR LOCALITY] should judge the candidates by the differences in policies they present. I will point, in particular, to the consideration of the far-reaching consequences of this election not just for national security, but women’s rights, the environment, social security, and the national debt.

While the attacks of September 11, 2001 ushered in a new era for Americans, and they are rightly concerned with the role of the government in dealing with this threat. The War in Iraq and the candidates’ stances on them raise profound issues about the role of the United States in the world, the best way to prevent violent political acts on American soil, and how the United States should interact with its allies. President Bush has demonstrated a willingness to engage in unilateral interventions against states like Iraq, risking the lives of thousands of American troops in a highly risky project whose fruits we are now seeing clearly. Kerry, on the other hand, has said that he would pursue a more level approach that engages other countries in a worldwide effort to fight terrorist organizations, although he has not articulated a position as clearly as President Bush up to this point.

However, in the rush to look at the candidates’ positions and records on national security as well as more intangible issues like “character”, voters are being denied the chance to consider other important matters on which the candidates have clear differences. While the threat of further violence from Al Qaeda is real and the War in Iraq is going from bad to worse, myriad issues are being ignored which affect the day-to-day lives of most Americans. Many voters do not know that Supreme Court appointments by the next President will determine, among other things, whether abortion continues to be legal in the United States; if Bush is re-elected it would likely be outlawed. Likewise, there is little discussion of the X dollars which Bush has devoted to tax cuts, most of which have gone to people making over [X dollars] while Kerry would use the money from previously projected surplus otherwise; the distribution of this much money will shape the United States for generations. President Bush has denied the existence of the greenhouse effect, while Kerry would likely support international efforts to combat this and other environmental threats. From how much money is available for public investment in education, social security, and health care to the quality of the very air we breathe, the man who deals with these issues will determine the shape and standard of our lives, our children’s lives, and beyond.

I am a New York-based freelance writer and a member of the Swing Writing project, which focuses on pieces on the Presidential and Congressional elections of 2004. I have previously written for Newsday, The Next American City, The Progressive, Z Magazine, and the South Asian Magazine For Action and Reflection (SAMAR).

I look forward to your response. I can be reached by email at sauravsarkar2000@yahoo.com or at [phone number].

Sincerely yours,

Saurav Sarkar

The Official Kerry Edwards Volunteer Media Corps

2004-09-24T13:44:00.000-04:00

While not for me, some of you might be interested in participating more officially than through this website. the official Kerry campaign website gives you the chance to complete assignments for the campaign, see their talking points on the issue, get tips on calling in to shows, or writing letters. For example, this week's assignment is to write to local newspapers about Iraq.

They also have a really useful link to finding local media in particular outlets at Congress.org which I'm planning on making use of. You can put in a zip code to find newspapers, etc., both local and national. It's pretty comprehensive.

Goal 1: Find people and hit the papers

2004-09-24T09:53:00.000-04:00

Right now, we have a very limited membership that's based in the Northeast. This means that we need to find people and figure out what outlets to hit accordingly. If you know anybody who lives, has lived, or knows the issues of the swing states listed below, please e-mail them asking them to join this project and sign up for the list at swingwriting-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and telling them about this website (http://swingwriting.blogspot.com). If we can set a goal of having 10 people involved in this project by October 1 who are willing to write, edit, or contribute in some other way a couple hours a week until the end of the Supreme Court fight after the election, that would be great.

For your amusement, in a perfect world, we would place opinion articles in the following top 50 newspapers (by circulation) that happen to be in swing states.

Denver Post / Rocky Mountain News (Colorado)
Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania / NJ)
Detroit News / Free Press (Michigan)
Minneapolis Star Tribune (Minnesota)
Newark Star Ledger (NJ)
Arizona Republic (Arizona)
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio)
St. Louis Post Dispatch (Missouri)
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Wisconsin)
Miami Herald (Florida)
Portland Oregonian (Oregon)
Pittsburgh Post Gazette (Pennsylvania)
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
Kansas City Star (Missouri)
Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)
Orlando Sentinel (Florida)
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Florida)
Cincinnati Enquirer Post (Ohio)
Little Rock Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Arkansas)
Charlotte Observer (North Carolina)
Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minnesota)

Mission Statement & Background Information

2004-09-24T08:27:00.000-04:00

Swing Writers is a project to promote opinion articles and letters to the editors in newspapers and other print media in swing states to remove President Bush from office, and push for a Democratic-controlled Senate in 2004. With so much at stake in this election and beyond, this is an effort to create of community for civic engagement-- basically, if you're a writer, editor, or an ordinary person looking to influence this election, this site is here to help you learn the basics, get editing help, etc. Moreover, you don't need to be confined to supporting the Kerry campaign; personally, I'm from the ABB camp and think that people in non-swing states like New York and California should cast protest votes for left-leaning candidates and more generally that the Democratic Party is just now starting to emerge from being in shambles. The point, though, is that you should be able to use this website and the swingwriting@yahoogroups list and website to get tools and constructive support for pushing forward a progressive agenda through writing.

For the purposes of the Presidential Election component of this project, swing states are defined as: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin. There are very competitive Senate races in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, South Dakota. And finally, there are very competitive House races from Texas to Connecticut. For more and more up-to-date information on all these, visit: http://www.mydd.com/outlook/senate, http://www.mydd.com/outlook/house for Congressional election information and http://www.electoral-vote.com and http://www.race2004.net/ for Presidential election electoral college maps and projections (based on current polling). For discussion, analysis, etc., http://www.swingstateproject.com, and http://www.dailykos.com are good websites.

The initial project is focused on getting maximum impact while working on the idea that people who are connected to the place or community they are trying to influence will have the most effect. So, if you happen to be a freelance writer originally from Colorado, recently moved to San Francisco, and have contacts to get an article in to the Denver Post, by all means go for it and we'll help you with editing your pitch letter, article, and what not if you want. If you happen to be a schoolteacher who lives in a small city in Iowa and is interested in writing a letter to the editor to your community newspaper, we'll help with that too. The point is to use the resources and tools available to you and to speak to your own community. As an example of what to try to avoid (although not always avoidable): if you're a born-and-raised New Yorker, pitching an article to a large newspaper in Oregon when you're totally unfamiliar with the issues there is probably a bad idea-- not because it would be impossible to get it in, but because said article would be more effective coming from someone who actually knows what matters to people in Eugene, Portland, etc. Of course, sometimes it makes sense to do something like that-- for instance, I (as said New Yorker) might write some articles for local community papers in Pennsylvania after doing some research on what issues are most important in those communities because there likely isn't going to be anyone else writing. In short, there's something for everyone to do.

In any case, we hope to have sample pitch letters (the letters/e-mails you send to editors to try and get an article in a newspaper/magazine), articles, and other things as we develop. Those will be located at the Yahoogroups page, so if you haven't signed up for that yet, by all means do so (link above). You can subscribe to the list by sending an e-mail to swingwriting-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Last of all, the basic rule: If you're editing, writing, whatever, be nice! This means, be constructive, be patient with people who have less experience than you, and above all, frame your message in a way that doesn't demean your audience.

Happy writing!