London Guardian Seeks to Rally Voters Against Bush

WASHINGTON – A liberal British newspaper’s campaign to influence the White House race, by having its readers write to undecided voters in a key county in the must-win state of Ohio, has prompted senior Republican lawmakers to question whether the Capitol Hill press accreditation should be withdrawn from the publication’s two Washington correspondents.The write-in campaign started this week by the London-based, 400,000-circulation Guardian, is focused on Ohio’s Clark County and is seen as a bid to deliver the state to Democrat John Kerry. Readers are being encouraged by the paper to sign up by e-mail to receive the names and mailing addresses of Clark County voters and are advised to be courteous in their missives.“Remember that it’s unusual to receive a lobbying letter from someone in another country,” the paper cautions.“We’ve zeroed in on one of the places where this year’s election truly will be decided: Clark County, Ohio, which is balanced on a razor’s edge between Republicans and Democrats,” the paper advises its readers.The Guardian’s feature’s editor, Ian Katz, himself a former Washington correspondent, said: “The result of the U.S. election will affect the lives of millions around the world, but those of us outside America had no say until now and this is a way to influence the election.”He told The New York Sun: “This election will have far more of an impact on our lives than even elections in our own country, and this is a way for non-Americans to express their opinions.”House Speaker Dennis Hastert is unimpressed, however, by what the Guardian calls its “public service.” His spokesman, John Feehery, said the Guardian’s campaign is partisan and therefore “unethical” and “inappropriate” for a newspaper.“We tend to let the Standing Committee of Correspondents decide on accreditation status in the press galleries, but the Guardian’s action raises serious questions, and we would hope the committee will look at all of this very closely. It is a clear problem and the position of their journalists is untenable,” Mr. Feehery told the Sun.The Senate and House press galleries are run by a standing committee of five journalists, who are elected for terms of two years by accredited members of the galleries. Membership in the press galleries is limited to “bona fide correspondents of repute in their profession,” but the standing committee also takes into consideration the nature of the publications they work for.Mr. Katz denies that the write-in campaign’s goal is to swing the election Mr. Kerry’s way.“The article launching the campaign is absolutely neutral,” he insisted. He said the paper includes “information for supporters of both main candidates” and provides contact details for the conservative Christian Coalition among organizations to which readers can send money without falling afoul of American election laws.But he acknowledged that it is “no secret we are center-left and that we are highly critical of George Bush and that our readers are pro-Kerry.”In the article launching the campaign, the paper says, “There’s no point being coy about Britain’s preferences in this election (never mind those of Guardian readers).”A United Kingdom poll last month put backing for Mr. Kerry at 47% against 16% for Mr. Bush. The article launching the letter-writing initiative’s tone also inclines toward Mr. Kerry.Republicans note that all the letters on the campaign from prominent British figures that the Guardian has so far published in its pages, and sent online to Clark County voters, are anti-Bush.The prominent letter-writers to date include the spy writer John Le Carre, the biographer Antonia Fraser, and the foreign-affairs spokesman of Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party, Menzies Campbell.Mr. Le Carre writes in his letter: “Maybe there’s one good reason – just one – for re-electing George W. Bush, and that’s to force him to live with the consequences of his appalling actions, and answer for his own lies, rather than wish the job on a Democrat who will then get blamed for his predecessor’s follies.“Probably no American president in all history has been so universally hated abroad as George W. Bush: for his bullying unilateralism, his dismissal of international treaties, his reckless indifference to the aspirations of other nations and cultures, his contempt for institutions of world government, and above all for misusing the cause of antiterrorism in order to unleash an illegal war,” the novelist writes.Ms. Fraser argues: “If you back Kerry, you will be voting against a savage militaristic foreign policy of pre-emptive killing which has stained the great name of the U.S. so hideously in recent times.”So far more than 7,000 Guardian readers have signed up by e-mail to receive the names and addresses of Clark County voters who are registered as independents. The paper decided to target independents because that “somewhat increases the chances of their being persuadable.”In the last presidential race, Vice President Gore won Clark County by 324 votes over Mr. Bush. Recent polls suggest that the county is once again a toss-up.The managing editor of the local Springfield News Sun, Jack Bianchi, said he doubts the letter-writing initiative will have much effect one way or another. “We are a difficult county to predict and are pretty independent minded,” Mr. Bianchi said. “Four years ago, there were 11 county posts to be filled, and in the election the Democrats won seven and four went to the Republicans. But in the congressional races, we went Republican.”Asked if he thought the Guardian’s letter-writing initiative is appropriate for a newspaper to undertake, Mr. Bianchi was sanguine. “They have their standards and we have ours,” he said. “This is America – everyone should be entitled to do what they want to do and how they want to do it.”The director of the Board of Elections in Clark County, Linda Rosicka, seemed less than amused by the Guardian’s campaign, possibly because it has added to her workload calls from the press around the world. “Everyone is contacting me,” she complained. She said a Guardian journalist recently wrote out the $25 fee to secure a copy of the county voter file, which includes 85,000 names.Like Mr. Bianchi, she expressed skepticism that the letter campaign would have an effect. “The American Revolution was fought for a reason,” Ms. Rosicka remarked.Bush-Cheney campaign officials aren’t going to take any chances, however. A campaign spokesman, Dave Beckwith, dismissed Mr. Katz’s suggestion that the initiative is nonpartisan. “Their intentions are thinly disguised,” he said.“We are going to find a way to ensure that every Clark County voter who receives a letter will know exactly what kind of newspaper is generating these letters,” Mr. Beckwith said. “We think that they should know that the Guardian is a newspaper that runs anti-American editorials.”On the question about the Capitol Hill accreditation of Guardian reporters, the current chairman of the correspondents committee, Jim Drinkard of USA Today, said the Guardian’s campaign is unusual. “It does raise questions that we don’t confront every day,” he said. “We will have to look at the specifics of this and all the facts and circumstances. Our rules are designed to draw a distinction between lobbyists and journalists.”The galleries’ rule 4c states that correspondents must not be “engaged in any lobbying activity and will not become so engaged while a member of the galleries.” Mr. Drinkard said that if the newspaper’s accredited reporters are not involved in the letter-writing drive, then probably there are no grounds for withdrawing their passes.“The bottom line is that individual journalists are accredited, although the status of their publication has some bearing, too,” he said. “With foreign media outlets there is more leeway, because you have some that are state owned, for example. But for the U.S. media, partisan campaigning is a no no, and we saw that recently with the Dan Rather case and his story about Bush’s National Guard service, where a producer put a source in touch with the Kerry-Edwards campaign.”

London Guardian Seeks to Rally Voters Against Bush

London Guardian Seeks to Rally Voters Against Bush

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