I've been thinking a lot about Kerry's "Foreign Leaders" comment (which actually said "more leaders") lately. I'm deeply saddened that such a content-less charge was accepted so totally by the media and turned into a three day (and counting) story. It was the breather that allowed the Bush Administration to get their feet back under them and threw Kerry back on the defensive. And yet it should have never turned into anything, it should never have gotten the coverage it did. Though the wording of the comment was impolitic, Kerry was making a worthwhile point about how the rest of the world feels about Bush, a point that was totally obscured by the media coverage that focused on the "who" rather than the "why".
Normally, I can "see" what a campaign should do to deal with something, I can chart a strategy that looks good to me. But when the issue at hand is something as ridiculous as this, there's no way to reframe it, no way to end the frenzy, no way for the candidate to escape until the media decides to let him. So the only thing to do is help the media "MoveOn".
Back during the Dean Campaign, Matt Singer and I (though mainly him) ran the Dean Defense Forces. The DDF was primarily an E-Mail list that, when an unfair or untruthful statement came out about Dean, would send an alert to all its members complete with what was wrong about the story, contact information for the reporter(s), talking points to use and possible ways to format your piece. Then the letters would go out and the offending reporter would get two hundred polite notes the next morning setting the record straight.
The point was never to attack the reporter nor get a story pulled. Rather, the idea was to make sure the reporter knew what was wrong about what he'd written so s/he wouldn't make the same mistake again. It wasn't about attacking the media as much as gently correcting it when it needed a bit of help.
I'm thinking of bringing back the DDF, now renamed the Democratic Defense Corps. But I'd need real help to do it. So this post is a way to gauge support. If you'd be willing to write letters or take a leadership role in something like this, leave a comment letting me know. Based on how you guys react, I'll decide whether or not to devote the time and energy into rebuilding this response team.
Also, I'd really need some people with web design experience who could help us build a site, let me know if you'd be able to hook me up on that.