In the "ideas for 2004" thread, there was somewhat of a consensus that the 2003 relay did not gain as much media attention as we would have liked, and someone mentioned the idea of trying to have a more "splashy" event to try to garner the national media's attention. Of course, the fact that this is a Presidential election year can be seen as a problem (making it harder to get media attention), or a blessing. We could perhaps try to organize a large "attention-grabbing event", which would be aided greatly if we could get some celebrities to help out - with the two options that pop into my head first being Willie Nelson and Neil Young, both of whom are big proponents of biodiesel. An additional benefit with these two, over some other choices that we could consider, is that they are not viewed as "whacko liberal hippies" by a large segment of the population, as some other choices might be (i.e. in some ways, having the Indigo Girls, for example, might do more harm than good because of the large number of people (rightly or wrongly) who now dislike them). Willie Nelson and Neil Young could help garner a lot of good attention from more conservative people who usually wouldn't give biodiesel a second thought, thinking it's only for hippies or something.
With it being a Presidential election year, it could also help out tremendously if we could get, for example, John Kerry to come and say a few words. I might be able to work something out there, which I can check into if this seems like a good idea to others (both having Kerry, and the general idea overall of having a large media event with celebrities, etc., perhaps to kick off a relay, or as the main event without a relay). Thoughts?
