By JOHN McCALLUM
Editor
In 2000 former Cheney Free Press editor David Rey developed an unusual hobby. He started a collection of campaign press releases.
And not just in a folder. He started stacking them on his desk, if memory serves. We wanted to see whose pile would end up taller by Election Day – George W. Bush or Al Gore.
Bush won by a considerable margin. No court decisions needed. No dangling chads on Dave's desk, just two large piles of campaign drivel.
I think Bush's team averaged about 4-5 releases an hour. OK maybe that's an exaggeration. Gore wasn't much better, but probably didn't use as much paper because of that green thing.
Flash forward 10 years and things have changed, but only slightly. Faxes are rare, but what I get the honor of receiving are e-mailed releases – tons and tons of e-mails.
As of today, Oct. 5, I have received 515 e-mails from various candidates, initiative organizations and of course, two political party central committees. Those are just the ones I've saved. If you count what I've sent to the trash folder since way back in April along with press releases from congressional and legislative offices it's likely over 600.
That would be more impressive if those were faxes but alas, this is the modern era.
So far the Dino Rossi campaign is ahead in number of e-mails – way ahead. Something can't happen in this world without Rossi public relations staff first blaming it on challenger and incumbent Sen. Patty Murray, and then issuing a press release about it.
Murray sometimes counters, but most of what comes out of her office leans toward her accomplishing something, proposing something, voting for or making a statement on something. With Congress out of session, I'm bracing for that to change.
Please, pray for me.
This stuff might be downright interesting if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of it is crap. Most of the time it's not position-oriented. It's as I said, accusations, counter-accusations, a poll finding here and a newspaper opinion piece there. With a little research legwork, most of it can be either proven false or shown to be qualified stretches of the truth.
I'm sure the rest of my newspaper colleagues are receiving these e-mails too. That's our lot in life. The idea of course is not to pass along important information on a candidate's position, ideas or beliefs. This is especially important to a challenger, who seeks to find ways to obfuscate any past positions in such a way as to not be pigeon-holed should they actually win.
No, the idea is to bombard the news media with so much information that eventually something sticks, even if out of sheer exhaustion at having to read through these to see if there is anything of substance to be gleaned.
But that's not what's truly amazing about this election season. What amazes me is that I am privileged, thanks to the National Republican Congressional Committee, to know more than I ever care to know about Gabby Giffords.
Giffords is a Democrat running for re-election as the 8th District representative to Congress – from Arizona!
Why should I care? I live in Washington. I've actually e-mailed the NRCC pointing this out to them but I still receive e-mails telling me all about Gifford's “flip flops.”
You'd think that a party that makes a point of exclaiming that their opponent isn't listening to the will of the American people would take the time to listen to the will of one lone citizen in a newspaper office in Cheney, Wash.
Ah, but no. This is the political season. I think of it as duck and cover.
I can't wait for it to be over, but until then, I'll keep adding stuff to my electronic pile, and let you know in early November who wins.
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