Maureen Dowd writes today about how bland and trite US political bloggers have been to date, and how it heralds the death of the internet. Right.
It’s true, blogs by Tom Daschle, Howard Dean, John Kerry, etc. are just another outlet for relentless campaign-speak. Even Dean’s guest spot on Lessig’s blog was dull, dull, dull. All that talk about political blogging opening up new opportunities for ‘engagement’, ‘debate’, and creating a truly participatory democracy etc. etc. is a bit of a nonsense when you think of how risk-averse the average candidate is. But before we worry that blogging is being taken over by The Establishment, let’s consider; are these people really bloggers at all?
It’s by no means exhaustive (and thoughts are respectfully solicited), but reading these political bloggers made me think of a couple of essential characteristics of a ‘proper political blog’;
– something you write yourself (a no-brainer for those of us without dozens of campaign elves, but hasn’t yet filtered through to most pols I think)
– not necessarily a diary (‘Today we went to Xville and looked at the excellent farm produce of this wonderful state.’), we’ve got websites for that.
– responds to at least some comments and questions, especially the tough ones
– ideally, links to other blogs or items of interest beyond the campaign website.
Essentially, it should be a genuine two-way / three-way thing (three-way in that the blog comments allow readers to discuss amongst themselves, not necessarily directly addressing the candidate). Otherwise, blogging is just a slightly handier way to update a flat web page.
Tom Daschle and Bob Graham have taken to heart the idea of blogs as ‘online journals’. Travels with Tom gives a day by day account of his summer travels around South Dakota, sticking to the theme of health care and insurance. It’s hard-hitting stuff, but has no comments or external links and so is basically a broadcasting tool. Bob Graham doesn’t actually ‘dub himself “the original blogger” ‘ as Dowd states. (Check out the blog itself or Signal vs Noise on this.) In fact, he barely blogs at all. Graham’s blog is actually written by a group of supporters, though is clearly marked “Paid for and authorized by Bob Graham for President”.
Similarly, Howard Dean’s own blog is written by staffers, and his week-long guest spot on Larry Lessig’s blog seemed to have been mostly written by campaign manager Joe Trippi. I’ve commented before on how flat this guest blog was – it seemed a largely wasted opportunity, though it improved as the week went on. Maybe it’s simply too much to ask already maxed out candidates to eak out yet more of themselves into a largely unproven medium.
Lessig was pretty positive about Dean’s guest spot, and I think most people would agree that it was better to have tried and failed, and so on. Lessig exhorts other candidates to blog;
“They should all find places where they can do the same — unprotected by handlers, exposed to many with strong and deep knowledge of a subject, and open to fair criticism. Let there be one week on a blog for every five choreographed “town halls”, and we’ll begin to see something interesting.”
In any case, Lessig is now hosting Kucinich and lessons seem to have been learned. On Day I, Kucinic is already standing out from the crowd by appearing to know something about Lessig’s hot topic of media concentration, and is answering the questions posters have actually asked. In a convincing show of spontaneity, Kucinich even made a typo in his first post.
Early adopters often look gauche in retrospect, and we only find out what works by trial and error, so kudos is due to the candidates who are leading the way on blogging. I hope these teething problems turn out to be just that.
BTW Any thoughts on the value to candidates of blogging given the nature of the ‘audience’? It seems to me that readers (and writers!) of political blogs tend to be relatively confirmed in their views. Do floating voters read blogs, or are the pols simply preaching to the converted?
Update: Thanks to Kevin Thurman for linking to an article on technical features of weblogs from the Berkman Centre which links to another on separating the good from the bad by Glenn Reynolds.
{ 10 comments }
Kevin Thurman 08.13.03 at 11:50 am
There was a guy thinking about running for president that fit all the categories that you placed above. I am biased I know but Gary Hart was getting there. I think blogs are not used well for simple reasons, campaigns forget you can have more than one. I know a lot of bloggers that do that. But then use the technology to make sure you don’t highlight your candidate’s once a week posts.
But I digress to technicalities.
If you want a good candidate/politician weblog see Tom Watson, he deserves some sort of award … he is that good.
And while I don’t agree with Ezra’s assessment of me, I think his assessment of the use of the internet by campaigns is very good.
Finally to your last question, it all depends. first typifying reader of blogs as confirmed in their view, I think is inaccurate, more importantly, I know many people who get interested in the idea of blogs from campaigns. Blogs are a great communications tool it why we like them. Questioning their use is ridiculous and shortsighted. However, their audience will be the same audience of all websites: fence sitting researchers, supporters, and press/opponents.
This is why blogs have been great cheerleaders and fodder for Press but not much else, no one has figure out how to convince the fence sitters … or maybe they have but are sitting i California getting ready for bed and are to tired to explain. either way there is room for improvement and remarkable success in the three months of weblogs in politics.
Kevin Thurman 08.13.03 at 11:50 am
There was a guy thinking about running for president that fit all the categories that you placed above. I am biased I know but Gary Hart was getting there. I think blogs are not used well for simple reasons, campaigns forget you can have more than one. I know a lot of bloggers that do that. But then use the technology to make sure you don’t highlight your candidate’s once a week posts.
But I digress to technicalities.
If you want a good candidate/politician weblog see Tom Watson, he deserves some sort of award … he is that good.
And while I don’t agree with Ezra’s assessment of me, I think his assessment of the use of the internet by campaigns is very good.
Finally to your last question, it all depends. first typifying reader of blogs as confirmed in their view, I think is inaccurate, more importantly, I know many people who get interested in the idea of blogs from campaigns. Blogs are a great communications tool it why we like them. Questioning their use is ridiculous and shortsighted. However, their audience will be the same audience of all websites: fence sitting researchers, supporters, and press/opponents.
This is why blogs have been great cheerleaders and fodder for Press but not much else, no one has figure out how to convince the fence sitters … or maybe they have but are sitting i California getting ready for bed and are to tired to explain. either way there is room for improvement and remarkable success in the three months of weblogs in politics.
Kevin Thurman 08.13.03 at 12:01 pm
Sorry for the double post … on another topic though I think that this bull about Graham not being the one to claim he is the original blogger is weak and demeans websites and the campiagn finance law that forces the campiagn to place this notice at the bottom of their site: Paid for and authorized by Bob Graham for President.
If the candidate is not reponsible for what is on his website then what is the importance of the medium at all? what do the policy positions mean?
I have a post about this here and here.
Denying this is something Graham is repsonsible for is like denying TV ads, press releases, and faxes. However it is okay because it is the internet. If this was a press release the press would have hung him like Gore over Darpa.
If the campaign wants to claim that Garahm is the original blogger .. great. I don’t care. That doesn’t belittle the internet as a serious medium. It might be funny or it might be danergous, but it is their claim, like a health care plan that a candidate says is cheap, that is what debates are for.
However this is not even within a post (another place I would hedge since it seems that they separate types of psots without realising how easy it would be to make that simple), this is in the html. So if Joe Jones wants to claim it and not attribute it to the campiagn he needs to start his own blog that is not: Paid for and authorized by Bob Graham for President.
Anita Hendersen 08.13.03 at 1:39 pm
As near as I can tell, every real political blogger on the Internet (right, left, or center), wishes they had Maureen Dowd’s job. And more importantly, most seem to feel there is some injustice in the fact that Maureen Dowd gets to write in the New York Times and they don’t. So as ridiculous as Dowd’s claim about the death of the Internet is, it’s some payback for those egotistical bloggers. And lumping Bob Graham in with “political” bloggers can only make the political bloggers feel enraged and misunderstood, so I applaud Dowd for doing it.
JNelsonW 08.13.03 at 1:49 pm
The criticisms Dowd levels at candidate’s blogging is pretty much true of EVERYTHING THEY DO. Their TV, radio and print statements are, for the most part, also largely impersonal and rehearsed (and none of those media forms are in danger of dying). It’s part and parcel of being a presidential candidate, I think.
Although, I’m thinking back to Clinton’s appearance on Arsenio playing the Sax. That was at least a convincing illusion of spontaneity. The current candidates would do well to capture the blogging equivalent of that moment.
Maria 08.13.03 at 2:02 pm
Kevin, I see what you mean. Up to a point.
Gary Hart’s certainly looks more like a blog than most others I’ve seen, what with the list of links to other blogs along the side (who chose them…?). And he’s clearly speaking with his own voice. But I still don’t think it’s the full shilling. No in-post links to other stories, and not much in the way of responding to points/questions made by his commenters. I can understand why politicians don’t want to get bogged down in an endless ping pong with commenters, but a single statement and counter statement do not a dialogue make. And Hart’s quote in the Maureen Dowd piece seems to indicate that he knows as much about blogging as he does about James Joyce;
–Gary Hart, who began his blog in March, doesn’t bother to read other digital diarists. “If you’re James Joyce,” he said slyly, “you don’t read other authors.”
nick sweeney 08.13.03 at 3:04 pm
The big point here: campaigning politicians on the road are busy people. Tom Watson, at least, has enough time in his Westminster office to take a ten-minute break from dealing with legislation and constituency matters to write updates.
It’s especially funny, though in a sad way, to see 200 or more comments on the first post to Dean’s guest slot at Lessig’s blog, and then have some of those people complain that Dean hasn’t answered their fourteen detailed questions on the DMCA in equal detail the very next day.
The narcissism of that particular element among poltiical bloggers is breathtaking.
‘I’d love to answer all your questions at this town meeting, but I have to check whether Instapundit has updated so that I can write a response before he says “Still no word from N. – he must be objectively pro-kiddieporn. No, sorry, I really have to go. My RSS reader just showed up a couple of new postings.”
With tongue in cheek, I wonder whether they would make decent politicians if they used their blogging time to launch a political career?
As for Hart’s Joyce comment, I think it might be a reference to a quotation by the great man (not Hart) that I can’t track down, but vaguely remember. But I’m also reminded of another line that has resonance with Hart’s own past misadventures:
When a young man came up to him in Zurich and said, “May I kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses?” Joyce replied, somewhat like King Lear, “No, it did lots of other things too.”
Ophelia Benson 08.13.03 at 7:10 pm
Ha, ‘let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality’ – well done Jimbo. (I love that line.)
Nick 08.13.03 at 11:51 pm
I think jnelsonw made a key point in that blogs that are part of a campaign are always going to be much more ‘controlled’ than blogs that are run by a politician who’s already been elected. Also, though, there is the question of how much time a politician/blogger can put into the interaction rather than just posting – MPs like Tom Watson and Richard Allan have that time to get interactive whereas politicians whose primary focus is their campaign aren’t going to be able to, for reasons outlined in other comments.
It will be interesting to see in a couple of years if the style of Tom Watson’s blog changes when he’s up for re-election and is in full-on campaign mode (Richard Allan is standing down at the next election so we won’t get to see, though he has mentioned that he will try and persuade his successor to blog)
eric 08.14.03 at 8:18 pm
I liked the Kerry blog where the comments were overrun with Dean supporters and Kerry supporters ragging on each other. Heh.
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