Searching for John McCain

[Joanne98]

Filed under: Advocacy/Activism, Politics — Hammy at 1:07 pm on Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Chris Bowers, over at Open Left is running an interesting anti-McCain campaign. He’s trying to get people to link to 9 articles on McCain in order to boost them in Google’s rankings.

The aim is as follows:


Searching for John McCain is a massive, online activism campaign designed to make at least ten million non-partisan, poll-tested, on-message voter contacts that reveal the damning truth about John McCain entirely through mainstream news reports and McCain’s own words.

Doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. Some have accused it of being a little unethical but as Bowers himself says:


Obviously, it is manipulating, but search engines are not public forums and unless you act to use them for your own benefit, your opponent’s information is going to get out there

So here’s my bit:

John McCain Votes to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike
AOL News is highly ranked on John McCain, and the minimum wage increase was incredibly popular.

McCain housing policy shaped by lobbyist
This article emphasizes how corporate special interests have formed McCain’s economic policy. If it becomes the top ranked MSNBC article, it will appear in the top ten searches for McCain nationwide.

Bush, McCain plug Social Security
Seniors are going to be the key swing vote in this election, and they hate Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. This is the best polling message against McCain of all, which isn’t surprising since our victory on Social Security is how began to turn the tide against Republicans and conservatives three years ago. The headline alone ties McCain to Bush, and this article already ranks very high on searches for McCain Social Security.

McCain blasts Obama’s and Clinton’s attacks on NAFTA
This is a great article because it not only ties McCain to NAFTA, which is quite unpopular, but it also draws a contrast between McCain and Democrats on the issue. The LA Times is also in the top twenty searches for John McCain.

McCain in NH: Would Be “Fine” To Keep Troops in Iraq for “A Hundred Years”
McCain’s “100 years” statement ha damaged him already, and this article has already been significantly optimized on Google. While Mother Jones is not an ideal news source, it is the top article for this quote, and appears in the top thirty searches for John McCain already.

McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion
This is my personal favorite. The headline just makes McCain look like an asshole, and ties him to Bush. Who is opposed to health insurance for kids? CNN also is in the top ten searches for McCain and John McCain A lot of people will see this one.

Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition
While I am not thrilled about using Salon, since it isn’t as well known, and since there is an advertising wall that hides the story, the title is damaging enough. McCain’s opposition to the GI Bill really hurts him, and tying him to Bush is just as bad. This title does both in a clear, straightforward manner.

McCain says overturn the law that legalized abortion
Pretty straightforward, and extremely important. More than half of all women voters think that McCain is pro-choice. This will quickly change their minds.

McCain Defends Bush’s Iraq Strategy
The classic McCain SEO, that still appears in top thirty searches for McCain and John McCain. It is also proof positive that this campaign will work, because it appears as the second CBS news article, but still on the front page in Google searches just below the CBS election center information on John McCain. That is all we need to do to get it on the front page of searches about McCain–optimize it against other CBS articles. Also, even though this SEO campaign was abandoned fifteen months ago, it still ranks in the top forty in McCain searches. If a fifteen month old campaign is still that effective, imagine what we can do with enough participation in this campaign.

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