Thursday, December 20, 2007

Bloggers and their role in politics

H/T to Shaun Kenney on his insightful post pointing out the WaPo article on liberal bloggers, the fact they did not pick up wins in GOP areas (example: Forgit), and the possibility that they hurt their dem candidates. He points out:
That's not a momentum that has merely been slowed.That's a momentum that has been checked.
He then uses an example of a GOP win in a usually-dem area:
On the other hand, conservative bloggers -- specifically the Old Dominion Bloggers Alliance -- can point to at least one pickup in 2007: the Ferguson/Poindexter race. Republican bloggers forcibly stripped away what was considered a relatively safe Democratic seat by refusing to allow a despicable act from Ferguson's campaign manager (or as the Roanoke Times reports, "political prankster") to go unnoticed, and the electorate responded to the low shot.
The political blogosphere may be going through change as the general public becomes more aware of the venue, reading and searching for information on political candidates and recoiling from blatant name-calling, mud-slinging, and dirty tricks such as the ODBA/Joe Stanley/ Yellow Dog scandal earlier this year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Shaun's analysis has been weird this week. First of all, the Ferguson/Poindexter race was held in Franklin/Floyd/Pittsylvania counties. It's one of the most Republican districts in Virginia- I think George Allen was over 60% there. It's hardly a "usually Dem" area.

He also said something about Bill Bolling winning a huge margin in 2005. Um, he won by 1% statewide- I think it was at the time the fifth closest race by percentage in statewide history.

Opinions are opinions, but lying about results to make an opinion is wrong. Unfortunately on the internet when one person lies (Shaun) others pick it up without even knowing. Now you know, and as GI Joe once said, knowing is half the battle!