I read today that Obama's campaign is enlisting at least 2 million supporters in key swing states to act as his "Truth Teams". I admit, this is a very corny name, but it's a fairly brilliant idea in theory.
In short, it's a grassroots effort to weed out the blatent lies told by Republican canidates. The teams will be launched in Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.
More below the orange doiley of truth.
Obama's campaign also recently launched 3 new websites, along the same lines.
As Stephanie Cutter (Obama's campaign manager) put it "If the other guys are going to run a campaign based on misrepresenting the president's record and their own, we have two options: sit back and let these lies go unchallenged, or fight back with the truth. We're fighting back."
I really like this idea of a genuine grassroots group in key swing states, talking to fellow voters that may be on the fence or confused about what the facts are. This will likely be a much more successful approach to getting the truth out there, rather than just running an ad touting accomplishments or trying to dispute the outrageous claims frequently thrown around by Republicans. This will be especially helpful for voters that don't closely follow politics to be able to seperate fact from fiction.
In a world where anything can be said in print, on the internet, on TV, or on the radio, it's hard for some people to determine what can be believed and what is bull$hit. It's so easy for anyone to start a rumor or false claim. But the person being falsely accused will have to expend 10 times as much effort trying to dispell it, and it's not always successful. People will believe what their gut tells them 9 times out of 10, that's just the way it is. But most Americans are hardwired to trust people in their community, which is why getting people in local communities to push the truth on Obama's behalf is such a brilliant idea.
Of course GOP supporters will try to convince people that these "Truth Teams" are just propoganda machines, speading lies and what not. But as much as the GOP may try, the truth is hard to dispute, because there is proof that it happened. I also know that the GOP definition of reality is different than the Progressive definition, but at some point, we should all be able to look back on the past 3 years and agree that reality was present and some factual events occured. I know I'm a dreamer....sigh.