Like you, writing about politics is a rarity for me, particularly on this blog, so I don’t have the time or need to dig deep into the issues.

Thanks for stopping by, by the way, and for your recent writings re: the PR trade.

You should investigate Obama’s grassroots campaign online – and I look forward to your upcoming denouncement of these tactics.

You should investigate Obama’s grassroots campaign online – and I look forward to your upcoming denouncement of these tactics.

The harried day-time producer at MSNBC books Campaign A’s talking head to parrot her assigned talking points of the day, allows Campaign B’s representative to do the same, and then the next 90 seconds are spent with two people blathering at the top of their lungs as if the lapel mic were the extent of their audience.

Additionally, even if this is a stupid idea (and I am more likely to agree that it’s stupid than I am to say it’s *wrong*), it’s done in the open. Stupidity gets called out; smart folks move on.

If someone gets duped, well, I believe in social Darwinism: survival of the fittest. If a hyperbolic, written-by-committee, cut-and-paste blog comment sways your vote, you ain’t the “fittest.” (I don’t mean “you” as in “Todd” but “you” as in just “someone.”)

As for talking points, of course they are created to be used. But if you provide a client with talking points prior to an interview, do you expect them to say that their PR firm suggested a particular line? In the political world at least — where I came from — talking points are designed to provide general guidance to bosses, clients, and supporters, not verbatim messages. If they were listed as “ghost written comments” or something like that, I think the implication might be clear, but not with a label of “talking points.”

It just doesn’t seem wrong to me that a supporter be asked to go to blogs to share their own views, informed by the campaign’s information. (I don’t happen to see the point in going to hardcore opposition sites like DailyKos, mind you, but that’s a separate discussion.)

Finally, I agree we can agree to disagree. (A lot of agrees in that statement, in fact!)

Anyway, that’s what the WaPo reporter extrapolated in their article, and I place that paper pretty high in the Integrity dept.

We can agree to disagree, though.

The “astroturfing” you mention is certainly something that could occur, but I don’t see where the McCain campaign is encouraging it — nor any evidence in this post that it has happened even without the campaign’s intent.

Let’s be careful about condemning the campaign for providing talking points. I can’t believe that you and most of the folks who have commented here haven’t provided talking points to clients before. Educating supporters or clients about timely topics isn’t nefarious at all.

Fake comments would certainly not be a good thing, but to suggest that the campaign is aiming for the behavior just isn’t supported based on what I can see.

Todd Defren takes on the issue of John McCain’s presidential campaign supplying supporters with “talking points” with which to place comments throughout the blogosphere. Also: The importance of failure, vote in PR Week’s Blog Contest, and brands that s…

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Angelinjones

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