Guardian calls it quits in Clark County fiasco

[emad]

The Telegraph
By David Rennie in Youngstown
(Filed: 22/10/2004)

The Guardian yesterday ran up the white flag and called a halt to "Operation Clark County", the newspaper's ambitious scheme to recruit thousands of readers to persuade American voters in a swing state to kick out President George W Bush in next month's election.

The cancellation of the project came 24 hours after the first of some 14,000 letters from Guardian readers began arriving in Clark County. The missives led to widespread complaints about foreign interference in a US election.

It also prompted a surge of indignant local voters calling the county's Republican party offering to volunteer for Mr Bush.

The paper said it had closed the website where readers collected an address to write to and had abandoned plans to take four "winners" to visit voters in Clark County. Instead, the group would be taken to the "more tranquil" area of Washington.

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[Connie_Corleone]

1. That was a really bad idea.

Americans (generally speaking) don't want people from other countries telling them how to vote.

[Crunchy Frog]

2. Although well meaning,

it was a terrible idea. Just the sort of thing likely to provoke a major backlash. I'm very glad that they finally called it quits.