Opinion: Dear (editor’s name here)

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It’s an old established political game for campaigns to have supporters all across the country write local letters to the editor extolling the virtues of their candidate and perhaps planting seeds of doubt or mistruths about their opponents. Many of these letters sound remarkably alike. Thanks to Google, letters editors can now easily find common published phrasings and discard the form letters.

But Barack Obama’s campaign is trying a new angle on the old game. He’s not trying to get supporters to write letters about the candidate. He’s trying to get them to write letters feeding the country’s anti-war feelings and criticizing President Bush, who is not running.

In an e-mail letter to supporters late this week Obama criticized the administration’s report on Iraq war progress and said, ‘Al Qaeda’s resurgence proves that the Iraq war has been a deadly distraction from the real threats we face--which is why I opposed the war from the beginning.’

He then gives a campaign website where people can go and basically write an automated letter to an editor. ‘Share your outrage at President Bush’s false claims of ‘progress.’’ You don’t even have to know the newspaper’s name. Type in your Zip code, up pops a list of local newspapers, check off the ones you want to write, add your name and address, choose the pre-written letter (‘This is a war that should never have happened’) or type in some other anti-war, anti-Bush talking points from a nearby list.

Then, with a simple click on the Send button, you’ve made a statement and helped to feed the unhappiness that--gee, here’s an idea--may look around for a fresh political face to choose as national leader next year, a fresh face that coincidentally looks remarkably like Obama.

This item was not paid for by Obama for America, which did not approve this message.

--Andrew Malcolm