New York Times reports that John Edwards will announce his candidacy on Thursday. It reports: “Mr. Edwards, who is arguably the most Web-savvy candidate in the ’08 race to date, is using Thursday’s event to try to gin up his supporters via the Internet.”
Some of you have been guessing that is where I’m headed. I can’t confirm or deny that yet but let’s just say I’ve been looking into how all the candidates, Republican, Libertarians, and Democrats, have been using the Internet to fire up supporters. At this stage they mostly need money — some reports are saying a decently-run campaign this year will take more than $50 million. For comparison, Edwards, last time around, raised about $17 million and he’s been beaten lately by Barack Obama (link to Wikipedia) who gives more exciting speeches, drawing large crowds who get excited enough to donate money.
Joe Trippi (link to Wikipedia), who last time around collected a record amount for the Howard Dean campaign (Joe understood blogging, social media, and Internet communities a lot better than Howard Dean did) wrote an interesting post over on MyDD today: Transformational Politics, where he writes “More than ideology, or any other factor — true transformational leadership can only come from a candidate who fundmentally gets that it isn’t about him/her — its about us.”
Already look at how people are posting information about the candidates to Wikipedia. No more “control the message” here. The only way to control this beast is to lay it all out there and make yourself, and your views, open to everyone.
I find this all very interesting, no matter where on the political spectrum you are. It used to be the only place to get political information was to look at the propoganda done by the major parties, or by reading the voter pamphlet, or by reading the occassional editorial or news report in either your local newspaper or in a paper like the Washington Post or New York Times, or by attending a rally and listening to a speech (where you usually got emotionally riled up, but didn’t actually learn all that much — I attended such speeches by Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, my photo of Ronald Reagan is still hanging in the Silicon Valley Republican Headquarters).
How did I find that New York Times article above? I went to Google News and had an alert set on John Edwards.
I’ll bet that within a few hours that’ll be linked into the Wikipedia page on John Edwards.
What, you don’t like John Edwards? Well, every candidate has a similar Wikipedia page.
They are all linked off of this Wikipedia page: 2008 Presidential Election (great page, with lots of links)
Who’s in charge of this election? You are. Any one of us can post a video that’ll change the outcome of this election. That video will get found thanks to the much more efficient word-of-mouth network that is social media.
Will your videos change this election? Damn straight they will. Here’s a search on YouTube for “John Edwards.” — I see lots of amateur videos. I’m certain many more will come.
Anyway, I have a feeling that Ernie the Attorney and I are gonna be drinking beer in some fine New Orleans establishment in about 24 hours talking with all of you. 🙂
Of course you’re coming along. I’ll even send you some beads. 🙂
Think of how to get political candidates to talk with you and answer the kinds of things you care about.
I have a feeling we should just setup a wiki.
Scobleizer 
Robert, be sure to remind everyone just where that “shiddach,” (arranged marriage) was made. Could it have been birthed at ConvergeSouth?
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Robert, be sure to remind everyone just where that “shiddach,” (arranged marriage) was made. Could it have been birthed at ConvergeSouth?
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Sue: it was a combination of Gnomedex and ConvergeSouth. Thanks so much!
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Sue: it was a combination of Gnomedex and ConvergeSouth. Thanks so much!
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Head uptown to the Maple Leaf on Oak Street.
Joe Trippi raised over 20 Million$ and spent most of it smearing Dick Gephardt the son of a truck driver who could have defeated Bush.
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Head uptown to the Maple Leaf on Oak Street.
Joe Trippi raised over 20 Million$ and spent most of it smearing Dick Gephardt the son of a truck driver who could have defeated Bush.
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Here’s something I know quite a bit about: how to get political candidates to use social media. They are using it here in Arizona all the time to raise money and overturn favorites. Harry Mitchell used it this year to overturn JD Hayworth. Savvy candidates have been into raising money on the Internet for a while now. And I saw the Edwards’ on Hardball yesterday; they are a very interesting couple.
What social media is going to do: change political advertising. Those last minute nastygrams that can ruin a politician can be even more last minute and viral now. New candidates will not have to raise as much money to get their messages out if they use social media correctly. If we do this right, we can destroy the advantage of incumbency.
I think Obama may yet get into social media, but it’s kind of interesting that Hillary has not. She probably thinks she’s the frontrunner and doesn’t have to. I predict that the election of 2008 will be the first one to REALLY benefit from social media.
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Here’s something I know quite a bit about: how to get political candidates to use social media. They are using it here in Arizona all the time to raise money and overturn favorites. Harry Mitchell used it this year to overturn JD Hayworth. Savvy candidates have been into raising money on the Internet for a while now. And I saw the Edwards’ on Hardball yesterday; they are a very interesting couple.
What social media is going to do: change political advertising. Those last minute nastygrams that can ruin a politician can be even more last minute and viral now. New candidates will not have to raise as much money to get their messages out if they use social media correctly. If we do this right, we can destroy the advantage of incumbency.
I think Obama may yet get into social media, but it’s kind of interesting that Hillary has not. She probably thinks she’s the frontrunner and doesn’t have to. I predict that the election of 2008 will be the first one to REALLY benefit from social media.
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If he talks up the Atkins Diet, he’s in. 😉
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If he talks up the Atkins Diet, he’s in. 😉
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One point…don’t for a minute fall for the idea that somehow bloggers and the rest will force politicians to magically speak honestly and directly. Two hundred years ago, most cities had multiple newspapers representing all points of view, and the campaigns were just as full of crap as they are now.
Merely taking video and blogging won’t change squat except here and there when a candidate does something incredibly dumb. (Face it, someone doing something smart isn’t as funny or cool, so the videos of that will be FAR fewer in number.) The ONLY question here is how long will it take the political machinery to start manipulating bloggers and the rest as adroitly as they manipulate every other form of news.
The idea that a larger group of people watching what’s happening will make the process more honest and above board is laughable. The larger a group is, the easier it is to manipulate because humans are, in the end, pack animals. If everyone else seems to be going along with an idea, no matter how dumb, it’ll gain momentum because who wants to be REALLY different? Not many people. Usually “different” is defined as “just like our group”. Groups shine in precisely one area: Dumb.
You want to make a difference? Get the voting percentages of the 35 and under crowd up to where the geezer voting percentages are. You want to know why old people get their way? It’s not AARP or lobbyists, it’s because pols know that geezers DO pay attention to how votes on things they care about go, and they WILL vote your ass out of office if you piss them off.
The 35 and under crowd? Pfft. In general, they only vote when it’s convenient or sexy to vote. You can get re-elected for life ignoring them, because they don’t vote enough to count.
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One point…don’t for a minute fall for the idea that somehow bloggers and the rest will force politicians to magically speak honestly and directly. Two hundred years ago, most cities had multiple newspapers representing all points of view, and the campaigns were just as full of crap as they are now.
Merely taking video and blogging won’t change squat except here and there when a candidate does something incredibly dumb. (Face it, someone doing something smart isn’t as funny or cool, so the videos of that will be FAR fewer in number.) The ONLY question here is how long will it take the political machinery to start manipulating bloggers and the rest as adroitly as they manipulate every other form of news.
The idea that a larger group of people watching what’s happening will make the process more honest and above board is laughable. The larger a group is, the easier it is to manipulate because humans are, in the end, pack animals. If everyone else seems to be going along with an idea, no matter how dumb, it’ll gain momentum because who wants to be REALLY different? Not many people. Usually “different” is defined as “just like our group”. Groups shine in precisely one area: Dumb.
You want to make a difference? Get the voting percentages of the 35 and under crowd up to where the geezer voting percentages are. You want to know why old people get their way? It’s not AARP or lobbyists, it’s because pols know that geezers DO pay attention to how votes on things they care about go, and they WILL vote your ass out of office if you piss them off.
The 35 and under crowd? Pfft. In general, they only vote when it’s convenient or sexy to vote. You can get re-elected for life ignoring them, because they don’t vote enough to count.
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Political information, recently all we receive for political information is how well one candidate can sling mud and expose an opponents past. I have yet to see a candidate just talk about where he or she stands on any one issue without it becoming a character debate.
Politicians are going to use all of the tools that are available and use them to converse the message they think, we want to hear. With the “Roadside accident” mentality that we demonstrate, politicians are going to feed us a Jerry Springer show ever time they want us to listen.
Using the internet and all of it’s interactivity, one can only hope that we the people will be able to tell them to shut up about their opponents did or did not do, and just talk to us about what they will do to make it better for everybody.
Robert, this is close to being to much politics!
Guy
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Political information, recently all we receive for political information is how well one candidate can sling mud and expose an opponents past. I have yet to see a candidate just talk about where he or she stands on any one issue without it becoming a character debate.
Politicians are going to use all of the tools that are available and use them to converse the message they think, we want to hear. With the “Roadside accident” mentality that we demonstrate, politicians are going to feed us a Jerry Springer show ever time they want us to listen.
Using the internet and all of it’s interactivity, one can only hope that we the people will be able to tell them to shut up about their opponents did or did not do, and just talk to us about what they will do to make it better for everybody.
Robert, this is close to being to much politics!
Guy
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“More than ideology, or any other factor — true transformational leadership can only come from a candidate who fundmentally gets that it isn’t about him/her — its about us.”
Heh, you crazy americans. First you turn your mechanism for selecting the country’s leadership into a popularity contest backed by real big money then you go and say “it’s about us”. You guys crack me up. No wait, you scare me to death. No wait, both.
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“More than ideology, or any other factor — true transformational leadership can only come from a candidate who fundmentally gets that it isn’t about him/her — its about us.”
Heh, you crazy americans. First you turn your mechanism for selecting the country’s leadership into a popularity contest backed by real big money then you go and say “it’s about us”. You guys crack me up. No wait, you scare me to death. No wait, both.
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Interesting. I’m following this and hopefully we’ll see this as a positive thing for the whole political system. More to come…
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Interesting. I’m following this and hopefully we’ll see this as a positive thing for the whole political system. More to come…
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“You” politics? Hmm. Could reality finally be catching up to Firesign Theatre circa 1970. “UTV for You the viewer.”
What’s with “too much politics”? There are direct connections from politics back to Robert’s recent declaration that the chief weapon of American technology is keeping the brain-drain flowing into the U.S.
Two connections:
If the anti-science thread in U.S. politics continues to grow, we’re going to be even more dependent on an influx of educated technologists from the rest of the world.
If the anti-immigration stream in U.S. politics continues its growth, we’re going to have even higher barriers to that influx.
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“You” politics? Hmm. Could reality finally be catching up to Firesign Theatre circa 1970. “UTV for You the viewer.”
What’s with “too much politics”? There are direct connections from politics back to Robert’s recent declaration that the chief weapon of American technology is keeping the brain-drain flowing into the U.S.
Two connections:
If the anti-science thread in U.S. politics continues to grow, we’re going to be even more dependent on an influx of educated technologists from the rest of the world.
If the anti-immigration stream in U.S. politics continues its growth, we’re going to have even higher barriers to that influx.
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And don’t forget that it was only a month or so ago that Amanda C was looking for help from videobloggers who would assist Vilsack in covering his stops.
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And don’t forget that it was only a month or so ago that Amanda C was looking for help from videobloggers who would assist Vilsack in covering his stops.
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“It used to be the only place to get political information was to look at the propoganda done by the major parties, or by reading the voter pamphlet, or by reading the occassional editorial or news report in either your local newspaper or in a paper like the Washington Post or New York Times, or by attending a rally and listening to a speech (where you usually got emotionally riled up, but didn’t actually learn all that much — I attended such speeches by Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, my photo of Ronald Reagan is still hanging in the Silicon Valley Republican Headquarters).”
Whah?
I didn’t know that TV, radio, and the telephone didn’t exist 20 years ago!
You do realize that the above statement boils down to: there used to be X modes of media; now there is x+1 which just absolutely changes everything!
Yeah, right.
And, Scobie, propaganda is spelled P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A. I thought you’d know that.
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“It used to be the only place to get political information was to look at the propoganda done by the major parties, or by reading the voter pamphlet, or by reading the occassional editorial or news report in either your local newspaper or in a paper like the Washington Post or New York Times, or by attending a rally and listening to a speech (where you usually got emotionally riled up, but didn’t actually learn all that much — I attended such speeches by Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, my photo of Ronald Reagan is still hanging in the Silicon Valley Republican Headquarters).”
Whah?
I didn’t know that TV, radio, and the telephone didn’t exist 20 years ago!
You do realize that the above statement boils down to: there used to be X modes of media; now there is x+1 which just absolutely changes everything!
Yeah, right.
And, Scobie, propaganda is spelled P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A. I thought you’d know that.
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Silly Goebbels, didn’t you know?
To the Scoble, anything that predates Winer-inventing methods doesn’t exist. If it’s not done via a certified Wineriffic™ method, then it doesn’t count.
TV
Radio
Non-Cell Phone
These things do not exist for the Scoble, and so any information transmitted by them is invalid.
Why next you’ll be insinuating that incisive, thoughtful commentary existed before blogging!
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Silly Goebbels, didn’t you know?
To the Scoble, anything that predates Winer-inventing methods doesn’t exist. If it’s not done via a certified Wineriffic™ method, then it doesn’t count.
TV
Radio
Non-Cell Phone
These things do not exist for the Scoble, and so any information transmitted by them is invalid.
Why next you’ll be insinuating that incisive, thoughtful commentary existed before blogging!
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Two North Carolinan CJ’s are live blogging from NOLA and have a pic of Edwards working with some middle school kids in shelving debris out of someone’s yard in the Lower Ninth Ward.
http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/story/2006/12/27/145840/54
Check it out.
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Two North Carolinan CJ’s are live blogging from NOLA and have a pic of Edwards working with some middle school kids in shelving debris out of someone’s yard in the Lower Ninth Ward.
http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/story/2006/12/27/145840/54
Check it out.
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John, the hilarious thing is that, even leaving out the dominant forms of media, his list sounds like there were tons of options, and wikis sounds quite insignificant. And that’s applying the propaganda of ignoring the most significant forms of media. Well, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe Scoble somehow lived in a time bubble for the last one hundred years. Maybe that “photo” of Raygun is really a diguerrotype.
‘You can get info from the parties, info from the candidates, the OCCASSIONAL (yeah, newspapers and magazines barely cover an election… last presidential election I think there was like one or two stories about it in the Times) local newspaper editorial, major newspaper, magazines (Oops, apparently they didn’t exist either), rallies… There was no way to get info! Now there’s wikis! Yay!’
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John, the hilarious thing is that, even leaving out the dominant forms of media, his list sounds like there were tons of options, and wikis sounds quite insignificant. And that’s applying the propaganda of ignoring the most significant forms of media. Well, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe Scoble somehow lived in a time bubble for the last one hundred years. Maybe that “photo” of Raygun is really a diguerrotype.
‘You can get info from the parties, info from the candidates, the OCCASSIONAL (yeah, newspapers and magazines barely cover an election… last presidential election I think there was like one or two stories about it in the Times) local newspaper editorial, major newspaper, magazines (Oops, apparently they didn’t exist either), rallies… There was no way to get info! Now there’s wikis! Yay!’
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Yup, I expect all the candidates will try to take advantage of the internet. Clinton has hired Peter Daou. Vilsack has videos up on blip.tv Mark Warner had an incredible internet team before he decided not to run and hopefully some of their work will make it to the political blogs.
The question is, how much of a dialog will be created? Will you simply have politicians talking on their political blogs and the rest of us talking somewhere else, or will we really connect?
I am hopeful that we can have meaningful political dialog in Sen. Edwards case. I helped set up a blogger meet and greet for him when he was in Connecticut in August, and I’m trying to do something similar for when he is in New Hampshire on Friday.
So, any bloggers that want to have a dialog and can be in New Hampshire on Friday, drop me a note at
ahynes1 at optonline dot net
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Yup, I expect all the candidates will try to take advantage of the internet. Clinton has hired Peter Daou. Vilsack has videos up on blip.tv Mark Warner had an incredible internet team before he decided not to run and hopefully some of their work will make it to the political blogs.
The question is, how much of a dialog will be created? Will you simply have politicians talking on their political blogs and the rest of us talking somewhere else, or will we really connect?
I am hopeful that we can have meaningful political dialog in Sen. Edwards case. I helped set up a blogger meet and greet for him when he was in Connecticut in August, and I’m trying to do something similar for when he is in New Hampshire on Friday.
So, any bloggers that want to have a dialog and can be in New Hampshire on Friday, drop me a note at
ahynes1 at optonline dot net
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Once again, John C. Welch nails it.
Good luck on the campaign, though, Scoble. Can’t wait to see how far this “regular guy” makes it. Hmmmm…the Dems potentially running 2 current and one former Senator for President? Again, the brillance of the party shows through. Don’t they study history at all? The chances of current or former senators being elected President are pretty small. The last one elected was JFK. Before that? Only ONE other. So, in over 230 years of electing Presidents this is the success current and former Senators have had. Why do they have such a hard time? Because they have a voting record that can be scrutinized. The reason Governors are so successful in winning presidencies are that the office most closely mimics the presidency, AND they have no voting record to analyze
So, good luck with that, Scoble. Maybe the Breck Girl can buck the trend. Just make sure he doesn’t primp on camera and he doesn’t try to give us any of that “regular guy” bullshit, given that he is a fairly rich lawyer.
As for Barack Osama (as Ted Kennedy calls him)..I dunno. I guess he does appeal to a broad audience. He’ll get the white vote and the black vote at the same time. And he’ll get the Christian vote as well as the Muslim vote with his last name. :-). Not sure the country is ready to elect a man whose name sounds like Osama Bin Laden, though.
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Once again, John C. Welch nails it.
Good luck on the campaign, though, Scoble. Can’t wait to see how far this “regular guy” makes it. Hmmmm…the Dems potentially running 2 current and one former Senator for President? Again, the brillance of the party shows through. Don’t they study history at all? The chances of current or former senators being elected President are pretty small. The last one elected was JFK. Before that? Only ONE other. So, in over 230 years of electing Presidents this is the success current and former Senators have had. Why do they have such a hard time? Because they have a voting record that can be scrutinized. The reason Governors are so successful in winning presidencies are that the office most closely mimics the presidency, AND they have no voting record to analyze
So, good luck with that, Scoble. Maybe the Breck Girl can buck the trend. Just make sure he doesn’t primp on camera and he doesn’t try to give us any of that “regular guy” bullshit, given that he is a fairly rich lawyer.
As for Barack Osama (as Ted Kennedy calls him)..I dunno. I guess he does appeal to a broad audience. He’ll get the white vote and the black vote at the same time. And he’ll get the Christian vote as well as the Muslim vote with his last name. :-). Not sure the country is ready to elect a man whose name sounds like Osama Bin Laden, though.
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“Think of how to get political candidates to talk with you and answer the kinds of things you care about.”
Isn’t it usually by writing them a big, fat check? Not sure how wikis or blogging is going to change that. Unless, of course, they ask me to “sponsor” their blog, I guess.
So, blogs and wikis will change how we elect presidents, huh? Ask Howard Dean how well that worked out for him. Wait! This time it will be different, right?
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“Think of how to get political candidates to talk with you and answer the kinds of things you care about.”
Isn’t it usually by writing them a big, fat check? Not sure how wikis or blogging is going to change that. Unless, of course, they ask me to “sponsor” their blog, I guess.
So, blogs and wikis will change how we elect presidents, huh? Ask Howard Dean how well that worked out for him. Wait! This time it will be different, right?
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LayZ: One of my first questions is gonna be “why will being a geek work for you when it didn’t work for Howard Dean?” I’ll give you credit for the question.
But, for my part, Howard Dean could barely even type his own emails.
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LayZ: One of my first questions is gonna be “why will being a geek work for you when it didn’t work for Howard Dean?” I’ll give you credit for the question.
But, for my part, Howard Dean could barely even type his own emails.
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“The chances of current or former senators being elected President are pretty small.”
I agree, he doesn’t stand much of a chance. Being president has very little to do with technology. Internets anyone?
Trying to pick up these obscure angles will only hurt him. It didn’t do Dean any good either. He should focus on the space program instead of computer and internet technology. Though that could hurt him too. I think he’s probably just burning money at this point.
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“The chances of current or former senators being elected President are pretty small.”
I agree, he doesn’t stand much of a chance. Being president has very little to do with technology. Internets anyone?
Trying to pick up these obscure angles will only hurt him. It didn’t do Dean any good either. He should focus on the space program instead of computer and internet technology. Though that could hurt him too. I think he’s probably just burning money at this point.
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“Being president has very little to do with technology. Internets anyone?”
I disagree. The best avenue to reach younger readers who aren’t exactly picking up the print copies of the NYT or other newspapers is through the web.
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“Being president has very little to do with technology. Internets anyone?”
I disagree. The best avenue to reach younger readers who aren’t exactly picking up the print copies of the NYT or other newspapers is through the web.
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And I should add, potential voters, who are younger, but the older generation is looking at the Net too.
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And I should add, potential voters, who are younger, but the older generation is looking at the Net too.
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@23.. Ha ha. You are probably right about Dean. However, I think we are still 2 or 3 elections away from the net having any consideralble impact. As John Welch said, there are still too many older voters that have more of an impact on elections the care more about other issues than getting their “dialogue” from the net. They much prefer the candidates show up face to face, and will still get their information from traditional means. Once the GenX’ers get to be in their late 30’s or 40’s and have more reason to vote, then the net might have more impact.
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@23.. Ha ha. You are probably right about Dean. However, I think we are still 2 or 3 elections away from the net having any consideralble impact. As John Welch said, there are still too many older voters that have more of an impact on elections the care more about other issues than getting their “dialogue” from the net. They much prefer the candidates show up face to face, and will still get their information from traditional means. Once the GenX’ers get to be in their late 30’s or 40’s and have more reason to vote, then the net might have more impact.
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As John Welch said, there are still too many older voters that have more of an impact on elections the care more about other issues than getting their “dialogue” from the net. They much prefer the candidates show up face to face, and will still get their information from traditional means.
Sounds very MSM to me. This is not what I think the next election’s voters will be like..necessarily.
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As John Welch said, there are still too many older voters that have more of an impact on elections the care more about other issues than getting their “dialogue” from the net. They much prefer the candidates show up face to face, and will still get their information from traditional means.
Sounds very MSM to me. This is not what I think the next election’s voters will be like..necessarily.
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@29. In time, yes. But I think we are one or two elections too early for that to have a major impact. I don’t think it will happen with the election to the level Scoble believes. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but there is still too much that has to happen with the process and the machinery for this change to happen. Now, if candidates can see this generating more campaign funding for them, then that will accelerate the impact
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@29. In time, yes. But I think we are one or two elections too early for that to have a major impact. I don’t think it will happen with the election to the level Scoble believes. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but there is still too much that has to happen with the process and the machinery for this change to happen. Now, if candidates can see this generating more campaign funding for them, then that will accelerate the impact
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Lord, here’s a clue for you Robert, of course, you’ll come up with a reason why sound bites on a blog are SO much better than in “traditional” media.
In Kansas, which is red as red can be, Nancy Boyda, a Democratic candidate thoroughly beat Jim Ryun, not only the Republican Candidate, but a rather famous ex-athlete, and pretty popular in his district.
What was one of the, if not the biggest keys to her victory? She stopped treating voters like they were dumb. She reasoned that people who read newspapers vote. So instead of sound bites, she took out multipage ads and explained, in fair detail, her positions. She didn’t talk down to the readers. She didn’t assume they had the attention spans of a gnat, or the intelligence of a rock. She treated them like she would want to be treated, as intelligent, thoughtful people capable of comprehending and digesting complex issues.
She won by a rather solid margin.
You rattle and natter on about blogs and videos, and yet, due to your myna-like thought process, you miss the point entirely.
The MEDIUM is meaningless. It is the CONTENT that counts. Blogs and podcasts and vidcasts don’t CREATE content. They only transmit it. They are EXACTLY as susceptible to gaming and manipulation as anything else. Boyda won using a 300-year old technology, because she provided GOOD CONTENT. It was the message that counted Robert, not the medium.
Your fervent, even blind belief that a thousand monkeys at a blog entry will magically make for better content, or more honesty, or some kind of magical resistance to manipulation is hysterical, when you consider how much of the A-List stays there solely by talking about THEMSELVES and BLOGGING. The only thing you can bet a thousand monkeys will create is flying crap. Which is a nice description of the “blogosphere”.
In fact, you’re probably the most easily manipulated of them all. All you care about is how “competent” the candidate appears at “Teh Intarweb”. That’s all that matters in your world…do they worship at the BlogAlter with you and with the same fervency. If they do, they’re “good”. If not, they’re “bad”.
How, pray tell, is that any different that the manipulation of any other group by political parties?
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Lord, here’s a clue for you Robert, of course, you’ll come up with a reason why sound bites on a blog are SO much better than in “traditional” media.
In Kansas, which is red as red can be, Nancy Boyda, a Democratic candidate thoroughly beat Jim Ryun, not only the Republican Candidate, but a rather famous ex-athlete, and pretty popular in his district.
What was one of the, if not the biggest keys to her victory? She stopped treating voters like they were dumb. She reasoned that people who read newspapers vote. So instead of sound bites, she took out multipage ads and explained, in fair detail, her positions. She didn’t talk down to the readers. She didn’t assume they had the attention spans of a gnat, or the intelligence of a rock. She treated them like she would want to be treated, as intelligent, thoughtful people capable of comprehending and digesting complex issues.
She won by a rather solid margin.
You rattle and natter on about blogs and videos, and yet, due to your myna-like thought process, you miss the point entirely.
The MEDIUM is meaningless. It is the CONTENT that counts. Blogs and podcasts and vidcasts don’t CREATE content. They only transmit it. They are EXACTLY as susceptible to gaming and manipulation as anything else. Boyda won using a 300-year old technology, because she provided GOOD CONTENT. It was the message that counted Robert, not the medium.
Your fervent, even blind belief that a thousand monkeys at a blog entry will magically make for better content, or more honesty, or some kind of magical resistance to manipulation is hysterical, when you consider how much of the A-List stays there solely by talking about THEMSELVES and BLOGGING. The only thing you can bet a thousand monkeys will create is flying crap. Which is a nice description of the “blogosphere”.
In fact, you’re probably the most easily manipulated of them all. All you care about is how “competent” the candidate appears at “Teh Intarweb”. That’s all that matters in your world…do they worship at the BlogAlter with you and with the same fervency. If they do, they’re “good”. If not, they’re “bad”.
How, pray tell, is that any different that the manipulation of any other group by political parties?
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