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June 20, 2003

The fix is in at moveon.org

This really upsets me coming from an organization that claims to be so small "d" democratic. The title of the mass email informing people about the upcoming vote they call the MoveOn.org Primary was "Gov. Dean wants your support." The folks at moveon.org are savvy enough to realize the effect that this would have. (I did not realize until I read the Kerry note today that they use similar titles and lead-ins for Kerry and Kucinich, too. Yet, how many will bother to even open those emails as opposed to the first one in which the note from the staff is new information - and worth reading if nothing else?)

Before you even open the first note (for Dean) with no other clues to go on, your assumption is that MoveOn wants you to support Dean. I know they will say "we just sent them out alphabetically" but they could have as easily sent one email will all three statements, or all nine! If you ask me, they did this on purpose, because the founders favor Dean for his anti-war stance and online awareness. What's more, the note does not clearly distinguish when the MoveOn staff's comments end and the letter from Dean begins. All it would have taken was a subtitle!

Kerry and Kucinich are the only two other candidates deemed worthy of being allowed to email all moveon.org members to explain their candidacy. Sending Dean's first means it is the first thing many like myself saw. They could have sent all three on the same day instead of spacing them out one per dayt. They could have divided the database up, and alternated the order for each third. (None of which would help any of the six candidates they left out). Like I said, the fix is in, but I'm still going to vote - for Edwards. I just hope they deem him worthy of appearing on the first page of the ballot! Who knows?

From: Wes Boyd, MoveOn PAC (moveon-help@list.moveon.org)
To: Mike (topdog04@optonline.net)
Subject: Gov. Dean wants your support
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 07:17:48 -0700 (PDT)

A NOTE FROM THE MOVEON TEAM
(Please scroll down for a special email from Gov. Howard Dean.)

Last week we asked if we should consider early endorsement of a
Presidential candidate, and the results were overwhelming. 96.3% out
of 186,000 who responded said YES to an early "MoveOn Primary."

So we’re moving forward. If one of the nine candidates receives more
than 50% of the vote next Tuesday and Wednesday, we will officially
endorse that candidate. Today's message is one of three we'll be
sending by email from the candidates favored in our first straw poll
on May 29th. To make sure you have the information you need, letters
to the MoveOn membership and responses to the MoveOn interview
questions from all the Presidential candidates are online now at
http://www.moveon.org/pac/cands/.

Invite your friends to register to vote in the MoveOn primary by
going to http://www.moveon.org/pac/reg/. The more of us that join
in this process, the better the chances that ordinary voters, not
pundits or big donors, will determine the Democratic nominee.

Thanks,
--Carrie, Eli, Joan, Peter, Wes, and Zack

------------------------------

Dear MoveOn member,

Our country is at stake. The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war is wrong
for America. The Bush tax cuts are not about cutting taxes; they are
about starving and destroying Social Security, Medicare, and our
public schools. They call polluting our air "The Clear Skies Act,"
destroying old growth "The Healthy Forest Act," and taking away our
civil liberties "The Patriot Act."

If you are as tired and angered as I am by the manipulation and lies,
then please join my campaign by signing the Pledge to Take Back
America. Let's show that millions of us are not ashamed to stand up
for our values:

Last but not least, the way they let just 186,000 (about 13% of their 1.4 million members) narrow the field to three favored candidates proves they do not want a truly democratic vote. Only sending emails to members from those three says everything but "We want you to choose one of these guys, not the rest."

They want Dean to win, and they are doing all that they can to ensure he wins, but in a way that still allows them to say, "Well, all nine were on the ballot!" Wink, wink.

As far as I'm concerned they can have Dean. MoveOn.org can bite me. (Let's see how long it takes for them to read this post, reject my membership, and keep me from even voting - thus bringing their hypocrisy full circle).

Don't take it from me, listen to the Associated Press:

Other campaigns have written pitches that are posted on MoveOn.org, but not e-mailed to its members. The messages are a reward for finishing at the top of the poll, and the other campaigns were told that they would be sent in a memo describing the endorsement process, Boyd said.

"You want to give everyone a soap box, but different size soap boxes in a sense," Boyd said.

Still, other rival campaigns say Dean has the clear advantage. They point out that one of MoveOn.org's employees, Zack Exley, recently took a leave of absence for two weeks and two days when he was paid to work on organizing Dean's Web site.

"We're participating and we think that we've gotten a good response from our supporters but, given the group's involvement with other candidates early on, we won't be shocked to see the results go another way," said Jennifer Palmieri, spokeswoman for North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi say Exley was hired because he admires MoveOn.org's ability to organize so many activists over the web and wanted to learn about his ideas. Boyd said he would give Exley a leave if other campaigns also wanted to tap his expertise.

Apparently the Gephardt campaign is raising similar concerns.

Posted by Mike at June 20, 2003 12:31 AM

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Posted by: David at June 20, 2003 12:48 AM

Posted by: Geheimbundler at June 20, 2003 12:01 PM

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