Stan Shebs wrote: Why was the Guardian's gambit a "really dumb idea"? And if you think it's easy to come up with a better approach, what's your proposal? There's nothing terribly intrusive about simply sending letters to people in the United States, and the Guardian set things up so that no one in Ohio would receive more than a single letter from their readers. In any given week, I receive dozens of unsolicited letters from companies trying to sell me products, organizations asking for my money, and campaigns trying to sell me their candidates. Getting one letter from someone in the UK would hardly be a burden and would actually be a refreshing improvement over the mail I usually get. The objection can't possibly be that we object to outside meddling, given the numerous ways that the United States routinely meddles in other countries' elections. So what's the problem? What I found most shocking about the Guardian campaign was the vitriolic response from Bush supporters. One person, for example, called the British "stupid, yellow-toothed pansies ... I don't give a rat's ass if our election is going to have an effect on your worthless little life." Other responses were full of similar profanity and insults. The level of overt hatred toward the British is all the more striking since England is in fact the best ally that the Bush administration has in its war in Iraq. If nothing else, these responses may help educate a few Brits firsthand about the ugly depths to which American politics has fallen, which in turn might put some additional pressure on the Labour Party to change course. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1329858,00.html