wenBLOG

Last year when I ran for Cuyahoga County commissioner, I made a decision to create a weblog and make it a key component of the campaign.  Some of this was financially motivated (I had very little money, and blogging is unbelievably inexpensive) and some of it involved my belief that the internet is one of the best ways for a candidate to disseminate their message.  I also made the decision that the blog would be written by me and not someone working on behalf of the campaign.  I did this because I felt that it would be the best opportunity for readers to get a glimpse of what I thought and why.

As internet campaigning evolves and candidates become more savvy in the use of the medium, the campaign blogosphere has exploded.  Before Joe Trippi and the Dean for president campaign many candidates did not have websites and even fewer had

campaign blogs.  While Trippi revolutionized the use of the internet as a fundraising tool, he also solidified the medium as an interactive platform for the candidate and voters.  This interactivity was the Dean campaign’s ”Blog for America” (BFA) and it helped to catapult Dean from a little known Vermont governor to frontrunner status prior to the 2004 presidential primary process.  At the time, BFA was Dean’s voice to the masses and many people thought that it was Dean personally communicating with them.  Unfortunately as the campaign gained momentum (and the website evolved), BFA became less what Dean had to say and more a tool for the machinery of the campaign.

The personal connectivity that a blog provides for both candidate and voter is something that can only be replaced by a one-on-one conversation.  Given the immensity of a national presidential race the one-on-one is impossible, but the virtual “blog-on-one” is not.  It’s for just this reason that I’ve always believed that a candidate’s blog should be written by the candidate and not the campaign.  Too often a candidate’s campaign blog becomes nothing more than:

‘…the candidate did this today.  He talked about that. Then the candidate met with supporters.  After that the candidate had a press conference discussing taxes.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…’

This is not to say that all campaign blogs are bad.  There was a recent post on NixGuy discussing the aforementioned boredom of campaign blogs but also applauding the quality work done by Right Angle Blog’s Matthew Naugle on former Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell’s website.  Matthew’s work spoke for itself and was significantly more than the boring reiteration of the candidate’s itinerary.  He talked about issues and political manuevering which indicated to me (and the blog’s readers) that he knew what the hell he was talking about.  Which brings me to a question…

Where does the candidate’s opinion end and the blogger’s begin?

It makes sense that a candidate would hire someone ideologically compatible with their own belief systems to blog on their behalf.  But if the blogger is constantly updating the page and providing more than ‘blah, blah, blah‘ sooner or later their own opinions will creep into the content.  Though I’ve not worked as a campaign blogger, I’ve had similar experience as a political speechwriter.  As a speechwriter, I’ve always tried to ‘get into the head’ of my candidate and write in the candidate’s voice.  I would lying though if I said that I’ve never put my own opinions into a stump speech.  It’s almost impossible not to do so.  The difference is that with a speech the candidate has the ability to edit the script before they open their mouth, but with a campaign blog no such edit is possible.

As campaigns become more sophisticated with the use of the internet and blogging, it’s likely that a tighter rein will be put on campaign bloggers.  The writers are likely to become more of an extension of the campaign’s paid media and less the freeform frontier fighters of today.  As an example, look at what happened recently with the John Edwards presidential campaign.  The Edwards‘ bloggers came under fire for posts they had made on their own sites prior to going to work for Edwards.  While Edwards issued statements of outrage regarding the posts, he said he was willing to give the bloggers another chance.  Nonetheless the two bloggers in question have subsequently resigned because of both internal and external pressures.

Actions like the one that just took place with the Edwards campaign are an example of the fine line that the political blogosphere must walk.  My hope is that campaigns will offer more of the kind of product that Naugle created or allow candidates to do their own blogging. Otherwise we’re doomed to nothing more than candidate calendars and online advertising.