Voted yes, I feel this is absolutely essential to prepare for! I have no doubt that the same thing (media blackout at a critical time) will happen again. We need to learn from our mistakes, we found out in 2007-8 what didn't work, and got surprised with the media blackout when it was too late to counter it effectively. The media blackout was the biggest problem, and really the biggest factor in how things turned out last time. There needs to be a strategy already in place to deal with this, both from the grassroots as well as the official campaign. IMO, there needs to be an infomercial run on several tv networks at once, during prime time - it certainly worked for Perot. In late 2007, I was working with another supporter on making a DVD to hand out to people, compiled from various campaign appearances I had videotaped, and addressing as many issues as possible. We were about halfway through the project when he suddenly abandoned it (I didn't have the editing facilities he had access to) completely to concentrate on the phonebanking activities urged by the official campaign. I remember being at a meeting with one of the official campaign's representatives, and several people there were asking for DVD's to hand out to people. DVD's are not much more expensive to duplicate in bulk than printed literature, and people are more inclined to watch a free DVD than pay attention to a piece of printed literature. There is so much video footage out there, it would be very cheap to produce, either by the official campaign, or by the grassroots. If the official campaign makes it well known early on that it will simply buy the needed media exposure in the event of a blackout, then perhaps it can be avoided entirely. Strategies absolutely need to be discussed on how to avoid or counter another media blackout, I personally feel that a combination of DVD's and an infomercial would be the way to go. Where's our mystery billionaire when we need him?
mods: I know at least one of you dosen't like my writing style. Feel free to break my post up into paragraphs if you'd like.
