You all probably recently received the same email funding solicitation that I did from Jean Shaheen. The question it raises is whether her campaign is clueless or whether, in fact, Ms. Shaheen really wants to harm the presidential chances of Barack Obama. Either way, the Shaheen campaign has some explaining to do.

The worst kind of political treachery for a fellow democrat is to pick up an opponents negative frame for a Democratic candidate and run with it, validate it and support it. That's exactly what Shaheen has done.

Almost immediately after the convention, the Republicans added to their talking points the notion that community organizing was some radical commie enterprise and that Barack Obama was its dark prince. The term "radical commmunity organizer" was on every Repiblican hacks lips. Never mind that community organizing represents the best of American values - empowerment, grassroots leadership development, local democratization

So what does Jean Shaheen do to raise money. she maks for your sympathy because the Republicans have been calling her a radical community organizer. Here's the text of that part of her solicitation:

Tuesday, Sununu dispatched Fergus Cullen, the Chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party, to attend Jeanne Shaheen's speech on fixing the economy. Fergus Cullen didn't come to the event to defend Sununu's record. He can't. He didn't come to present Sununu's plan to fix the economy. Sununu has none. Instead, Cullen attacked Shaheen for being a "radical community organizer" four times in a two minute statement.

So in this lay a moment. Shaheen could have exploded the negative frame - explaining the values that underly community organizing of the sort Barack Obama did and that we should be proud to have a candidate that has these values.

Instead, she responded by making light of the charge, saying the only organizing she did involved an international children's day which she basically describes as a PTA bake sale. Then she says "how radical." So her response is the classic validate the negative frame response - I am not guilty of the charge. Implicit in that is the notion that if she was guilty of the charge that would be a bad thing and implicitly that because Obama was a "real" community organizer, he's bad, while she's good. This is the classic Nixon "I am not a crook" response. It either comes from rank stupidity or malice.

Write Jean Shaheen and let her know that its time her campaign got a clue and stopped sending out mixed messages that harm the Obama effort and reinforce negative Republican frames about the Obama candidacy. Tell her to support democractic values like community empowerment and civic and political engagement and speaking truth to power that are represented by community organizing and let people know she supports those values and isn't running away from them to the detriment of the presidential campaign. Or she doesn't deserve our support