Undeclared voters here are receiving letters from readers of a British newspaper that urged non-Americans to write in an effort to influence the US presidential election.
The Guardian of London has offered a three-day trip to the Springfield area for the four best letters. In a multipage section last week, the paper called Clark County a significant swing county in a significant swing state, and noted that Democrat Al Gore won the county by only 324 votes in 2000.
The Guardian's Web page has printed a selection of reply letters it has received from Ohio and across America, with responses ranging from the warmly supportive to the unprintably abusive.
James Chapman said he received a letter Saturday from a woman in Yorkshire, England.
"She said it was an important election and asked me to vote for Kerry," Chapman told the Springfield News-Sun for an article to appear in its edition yesterday. "It was very nicely written."
Chapman said he did not understand why the western Ohio county was so important to others, but he said the letter had little effect on him because he already decided to vote for Democrat John Kerry.
Beverly Coale, who has already cast her vote for Kerry, said she was shocked when a letter from England arrived for her mother, Thelma Arnold. She said Arnold is a registered voter but has not voted in recent years because of illnesses.
Coale described the letter from Neil Evans, of Kent, England, as propaganda.
"Please act now to preserve your once-great name internationally," the letter states. "We know the majority of you didn't vote for Bush the first time around, but voting him in for a second term will mean putting on a Canadian accent when traveling abroad."
Coale said the American people are too smart to be influenced by people outside of the country.
The Web site for The Guardian states that letter writers are free to support either President George W. Bush or Senator John Kerry, while noting that a poll it conducted showed 47 percent of Britons back Kerry and 16 favor Bush.
On Tuesday, The Guardian's Web site ran a sampling of replies it had received.
"Your idea is superb and frankly, we need a little help over here right now," said one of the respondents listed as living in Ohio.
But one of the more polite Ohio dissenters replied, "Go back to sipping your tea and leave our people alone."
Another reply from Springfield posted on the Web site said: "Dear wonderful, loving friends from abroad,
"We Ohioans are an ornery sort and don't take meddling well, even if it comes from people we admire and with their sincere goodwill. We are a fairly closed community overall. In my town of Springfield, I feel that there are some that consider people from the nearby cities of Columbus or Dayton, as `foreigners' -- let alone someone from outside our country."
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