Slashdot Mirror
Politicians Catch on to Blogging
Jason Jardine wrote to mention a C|Net report on an increase in the use of blogs by politicians in the U.S. capitol. From the article: "Just a year ago, a DailyKos posting from someone like John Kerry would have been all but unheard of, and blogging of any kind by members of Congress was almost nonexistent. But now that dynamic is starting to change, and slowly, members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are beginning to appreciate the value of blogs. 'When I reach out to the blog community, it gives me an opportunity to begin a dialogue with an extremely politically sophisticated and active community that I otherwise might not be able to reach,' Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com."
If you really believe that the pols themselves are actually writing, or even reading these, I've got a bridge in Manhattan I'll let you have very cheap. This is a staffer job.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
/dev/random
Now after we've had the media assailing blogging, how does this all fit together?
"New Zork Times sez: proof you can't trust politicians, they blog! (and you know how unreliable that can be with plants and such!)"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Modern electoral politics is all about leverging centralized media influence on people who are too lazy to find their own sources of info. Bloggin is just the opposite -- it allows people to seek the opinions of strangers rather than just passively receive them. It won't work for the mass-distribution of the lies whose sole intent is to empower corruption that has become modern political process.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
It's almost impossible to verify that someone is "The real ______" - I can't see any real politician trying to post on a site like Slashdot, DailyKos, Fark, K5, etc - there's no way to verify who they really are.
It would be easier to establish their own blogs that enable reader-feedback / comments - at least then people "know" who the real Senator / Congressman / Staffer is, and who's just making up a funny name.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Not to say this article has no place on slashdot but since your average politician can lie straight faced to you on TV and in public forums what difference does blogging make? For the most part it's just going to be more of the same that they already provide.
But let them go ahead. It's easy to sound good on paper.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
This all start with the Howard Dean campaign using blogging and other online tools to raise money. Now other politicians are catching on to how they can use it. Blogging is old news to slashdotters but I'm sure there are a lot of politicians who still would ask, "What's a blog again?" In the next few years (maybe in '08) I predict someone will tap into the power of wikis for campaigning and fund-raising purposes. But let's let them get their heads around blogs first :-)
Bradley Holt
Does this mean I do not need to buy Cliton's book?
When I reach out to the blog community...
I'm sorry Mr. Obama, but I won't take you seriously until you call it the blogosphere like everyone else. At least then I'll have a reason to ridicule you...
What's the big difference between a politician's blog and their already sanitized websites? I'm sure that even if they are the ones writing entries, they have them reviewed before posting.
Learn more about Steorn at Free Energy Tracker
Did he just say "extremely politically sophisticated"? Is this guy connected tot he same net as the rest of us?
This is a staffer job.
Easy solution: Enable Video Blogging
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
It may also be a way to bypass the more common venue of television, which some argue is becoming increasingly controlled by Republican interests. Newspapers are generally seen as more liberal, though readership is declining across the board. Regardless of who controls the big television news outlets, I think it's extremely valuable to have a broad range of methods for politicians to reach constituents.
It seems to me that a politician's blog is the ideal target for the other side's (both sides have them) stupid teenagers. I mean, if /. gets trolled, imagine the White House blog!
A John Kerry diary on DailyKos would obviously have been written by a staffer as would most "by" various Senators, but posts from House representatives and just about any candidate usually are written by the actual politician in question. My Congressman, Jim McDermott, even responds to comments to his posts.
is no more politically sophisticated than my 10th grade english class was.
Which makes them about 10 times more sophisticated than the rest of America that hit the peak of their political sophistication in the 10th grade and have beeen declining ever since.
Find coupons in Greeley
You just call up the politician's office and ask.
Ummmm.... there have been plotical blogs for years now. I mean ones written "by politicians". John Kerry and G-dubya both had blogs durring their compaigns. Old news.
In the canadian election that just past most parties and blogs and or podcasts. The thing I personally found interesting was the fact that a poorly written blog that effectively says nothing really effected my vote. For example I found the liberal party blog extremely bad ... and I actually changed my vote because of it.
I really hope politicians are savy about this (especially the "good politicians").
how this shapes up in the future. As you know, politicians often dance around issues in speeches and debates, but in a text medium (that is archived by google and the likes), it will be much more difficult for them to talk their way out of corners. I believe that it will also allow for a much cleaner clarification of the stance taken on issues. Irrespective of who actually pens the blog (staffer or politician), if it is in the name of the politician (as in, on his/her site), it would be significantly politically damaging to reverse a statement, stance or roll in an event based on prior blog activity. Also, given the impromptu and almost laid back approach to this medium, I believe we may see a much more pertinent view of the politician, rather than the spit polished, straight-laced, impeccable image that they want us to believe and put forward in all public appearances. It should be interesting...
for quite some time. But then again, i'm swedish. I use it mainly to debate and put forth my points on open source and labour law.
I'm sorry, but watching even a few political advertisements has me wanting to vomit from the amount of mud slinging and self-praising. This applies to all politicians, btw.
My question and concern is that such "blogs" may fall outside of current legal restrictions and requirements for truthful dissemination of information and whether there will be invasions of privacy by the posting of competitor politician's private information behind password protected dicussion groups on such blogs.
Not that such may not already be employed already, but such official organized blog efforts where ALL content on the site is specific to one candidate or party has me thinking this is the kind of thing that will further polarize and seperate the parties and rile up the people to take sides, not open dialogs for communicating.
The only upshot of this... and perhaps a downside of it... is that it's on a webserver and not taking the form of a mass emailing to my mailbox. :| But it also means that people who follow a particular candidate or party will only be even more isolated and less exposed to the counter arguments of the other party/candidates. Potentially resulting in very narrow viewpoints and inflexible positions.
Winged Power Photography
I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is a political science major. He raised the point that in 10-20 years, politicians might regret what they had written in blogs. Imagine if John Q Polly is running for congressman, and someone digs up an old LiveJournal entry from back in his college days where he says something like "Screw the military. Every one of those dead US soldiers got what they deserved by working for the man". A stupid, impulsive comment which if brought to light would probally destroy his chances at office. 20-30 years ago his father might have said something like that in an editorial for the Berkley Daily, but on a web log it's a lot more accessable. Just a random thought.
Barrack Obama (my neighbor) is really on the cutting edge with those sort of things, as far as politicians go. He also has a podcast available through iTunes.
Next, it was "thinking outside the box."
After that, "blogging for dummies."
Then, it was "been there done that sold a tshirt."
In turn, "everyone and their dog."
Lately, "media watchdogs are chiming in."
Finally with the politicians doing it, "it's trickle down economics!".
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
OK. Is it just me or does "Barack Obama" sound like he could be a bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe?
;-P
It would makes sense, I suppose...what with the ridiculous beauracracy and Sith-like traits of certain leaders.
(Seriously, though. Cool name.)
I would like to applaud all moves by current democrat politicians, including Kerry, to try to appeal to the readers of sites like Daily Kos and Democratic Underground. It'll really make for some great ads.
In general politicians need to be very careful where they post. Some/most people on Daily Kos may be are pretty fair to the left and still sane and intelligent, but there are plenty of extremely anti-american, anti-capitalist users and comments on there that no US politican (outside of the bay area) would want to be associated with.
Which population is he talking about? Surely not the American one which actively voted in an unsophisticated monkey such as George Bush. He gives you hicks and backwoodsmen more credit than you deserve,
Jonathanjk.com
This could be a very positive thing. As long as you keep a cache of their blogs (even if they are written by stafff), and can crawl them for particular subjects. you would be able to see where they stand on certain issues, and also see how often they change their mind.
Personally, I would find it much easier to vote for a representative if I knew how they stood, and didn't flip--flop around the issue.
"Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time." Danny Vinyard -American History X
Is if they actually got involved full time with the blogosphere, at the same level as the "A-list" bloggers. Same legal restrictions, everything. And one other, very important thing. It's not enough that they open up comments, they need to do trackbacks to. Nothing can get a debate going on between bloggers like trackbacks. They're a good way to make sure that the other side doesn't have an excuse to make wild assertions and then say, "well no one challenged me."
Of course they'd shit a brick if people started providing factual trackbacks, especially ones that reference opensecrets.org on pet projects. Imagine a democratic senator getting called out on their support for repressive copyright law or a republican getting forced to own up to links to pharmaceuticals when they oppose drug liberalization measures.
"...the blog community, it gives me an opportunity to begin a dialogue with an extremely politically sophisticated and active community that I otherwise might not be able to reach,' Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wrote
Come to think of it, I have been seeing alot of this guy "ß/\®/\|{" on Slashdot lately.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I am an elected official and I maintain my own blog...
http://borocouncilman.blogspot.com/
It's proven to be an extremely useful tool for my constituents. In our small town, the blog is an opportunity to share information on local issues that may be otherwise ignored by the media. As a result, I've gotten great feedback from the community.
That said, not everyone is thrilled with it. The opposition party is actually very unhappy with it. I believe anything that enables our government to be transparent is a good thing.
Quote:
"YEEEEaaaRRRGGHHHHHHH!"
Why conservative politicians don't post commentary on conservative blogs, because the commentators on those sites are frequently disappointed out government isn't more like the Nazis rather than less.(don't believe me, check out lgf, freeperville)
Glenn Reynolds explained yesterday during a panel on blogger ethics that he doesn't allow comments on instapundit because he doesn't want to be associated with their extremism. Which is interesting, as he frequently links to such examples on other blogs to prove his own perverted points. So he's afraid others might do to him what he does to them, I guess. Sort of a reverse Golden Rule.
Frankly I don't care what commentators say, and in many cases the extremist comments on these blogs are actually coming from the opposition in an attempt to make people look ridiculous. It's just fucking gotcha politics. Let's deal with the real party platforms and issues, and ignore the lunatics on the fringes who don't get listened to anyway.
I think it is naive at best to think that the majority of blogs that 'belong' to politicians are written personally by them. Most of the old guard arent' savy enough to do it. Of the rest, they may have started it on their own, but eventually it will get turned over to their staff, becoming nothing more than restated press releases.
I don't blog, but my understanding of the reasoning behind it is to put yourself out there and discuss whatever is on your mind at the time. Others are allowed to comment on that, discussion ensues among all, and hopefully, albeit rarely, something positive comes out of it.
It might start out well, but in the end political blogs will wind up serving the exact same (and useless purpose) that writing your Congressman a letter or email does today...a mostly useless waste of everyone's time. I say this with an insider's view, having done an internship in the office of one of my state's congressmen in DC.
Some political action organization (AARP, NRA, NAACP, etc) would send out mailers to it's members with little postcards for the member to send to their representatives in DC. The cards were even already filled out, with the member's name, address, and the names and addresses of their Congressman and Senator. We'd get these cards by the THOUSANDS when some issue was up in the House. They'd all get typed in to a database, and the THOUSANDS of copies of the same form letter would be sent out.
Note that the Congressman never interacted with these. I'm sure there was some impact from the sheer number of them ("Boss, we received 12,342 postcards from AARP about the social security bill...") but that's about it.
Then there's the nutjobs who write (or even call) on a weekly or more frequent basis.
Blogs will go the same way, I think. Issues will be posted by staff, people will go ape and respond to it, the nutjobs will post their rable with the majority of it not even being on topic, congressional staff will monitor and count the responses, and that's about it. All we've done is cut the United States Post Office out of the loop.
OK, which one of you traitors tipped off the politicians that these things called computers exist? Politicians should be treated like mushrooms: keep them in the dark and feed them bull.
Even Hastert had a blog where he related his thoughts about starting a blog, old dogs and new tricks, promised to try to post new content from time to time, etc, etc. Don't know if he kept it up, but it really was him writing the content.
to his post a couple of days ago. He updated the post at around 500+ to thank folks for their responses (some of them less than flattering or encouraging).
If you're in the UK, you might want to visit some of the weblogs written by our Members of Parliament.
Other important resources are TheyWorkForYou.com, which is a "Web 2.0" (ugh) way of keeping track of what your MP is doing and what's happening in the Houses of Parliament; and WriteToThem.com, which takes the hassle out of writing to your MP - they print it out and post it for you.
Of course, if that's not enough for you, you can switch on Celebrity Big Brother, where George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow has been residing for the past few weeks. As predicted by Tom Watson in 2004.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
1.12.06
...conflict... where he tells me what to do, and I get all the blame when it goes wrong. I'm like: "Bob, why are we doing this again?" And he's all like "Geopolitical Interest this, and Economic Superiority that, and Strategic Base the other. He doesn't even explain it good, and when I ask questions, he's like: "I don't pay you to think. I pay you to get those dissenting assholes off my back." What a dickweed. lol
I hate my boss. I prolly already told you I got a job in politics. I can't tell you what it is without giving away my ID, but trust me when I say I've got a hardass boss - "Bob" Cheney.
He's got me into this
1.20.06
I have this thing at work, sort of like an intercom system, where you can listen to different rooms, only those rooms are people's houses. One of the funnest things about work was getting to listen to these boring assholes going about their daily lives, with like no idea someone's listening to them farting and singing in the shower like idiots. I just got caught though, so my job just got more boring.
People were assholes about it, too. I had to be like, "National Security! National Security!" And even then, some people were still riding my ass. My work sux. I swear I'm gonna quit in 2008.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
They caught that last part, believe me.
Heck, even beyond the money, politicos used "the blogosphere" with some success to spin their issues in the '04 election cycle, mere months after Dean's Iowa flameout. The newest wave of "Swift Boat Veteran" groups will try to drive all sorts of political wedges into the voting public via blogs.
Politicians aren't interested in its for its own sake, necessarily, but the uses aren't lost on them.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Slashdot. Slashdot, meet ... oh, dear.
There seems to be some kind of incident at the Capitol, with people and politicians running for their lives. News reports are saying something about a catastrophic computer meltdown.
Oh, the humanity.
Ads like that might whip up the Republican base, but that's about it. Besides, if you want some real nutcases, give Little Green Footballs a whirl.
Finding God in a Dog
...you'll find that candidates for office will write their own blogs. In fact, in some cases, it goes the other way around -- the DailyKos blogger will go and run for office, inspired by other Kossacks.
Finding God in a Dog
This stupid politician in Iceland has been bloggin since early '95. www.bjorn.is. It doesn't make him any better of a politician...
Q: What about non-DKos people?
A: Who cares? DKos is for DKos readers. If a Senator wants to communicate with us, we're glad to have 'em, but they're basically just anybody else.
Finding God in a Dog
As the GOP demonstrated in 2002 and 2004, elections these days are all about getting out your base.
Finding God in a Dog
Or is it just because conservatives are so fucking dumb that they actually believe that by addressing a particular audience a speaker endorses everything every individual member of that audience says.
If you actually think this is limited to conservatives, try reading this rather critical Salon story from 2000 by Jake Tapper (now an ABC news correspondent). A selection:
Jonesing for votes
George W. Bush's speech at a college that bans interracial dating raises questions about his compassion.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Jake Tapper
Feb. 3, 2000 | Self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush spoke Wednesday morning at Bob Jones University, a Greenville, S.C., school that bans interracial dating on campus.
"The governor doesn't agree with that policy," noted Bush campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. "But this is a school that has a lot of conservative voters, and it's a common stop on the campaign trail."
(etc., etc.)
Most of them would never really get blogs, they are too much control freaks even worse would be installing slash-code! Imagine explaining the /. system to a politician.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
And we'd believe their blogs over what they say on TV or in other forms of media why? This is just another way to spread lies, or rather not divulge the whole truth (which is as I was taught a lie).
Someone above seemed to be making that point when envisioning a post that would never be about the majority whip being a real douche (his words). We're not going to learn anything new here we wouldn't have learned elsewhere so I see nothing fantastic about this news.
I don't think the family of "blog" terms should be applied to any type of web page where there are no reader comments and no interaction. A press release with a more personal voice does not constitute this.
I would much rather read candidates' blogs to get a glimpse of their stands on issues than be bombarded with television ads for weeks leading up to an election. The very act of a citizen bothering to access a politician's blog and reading about issues increases that citizen's connection to the political process, especially when compared to the old TV ad blitz that gives so many people their info during a campaign.
That's sort of like saying that the Klingons have a little problem with the Romulans.
Finding God in a Dog
This is probably a true statement for people who've been in office a long time, say Teddy Kennedy or Chuck Schumer. Those people barely know what a computer is, or how to use the Internet, much less how to blog.
It's likewise probably fairly true of party hacks who get elected. They are of the party/union/corporation, by the party/union/corporation; they really don't care what their constituents think, because they don't rely specifically on their support.
However, among freshmen Congressmen who don't fit the hack label I can well believe that they actually blog themselves rather than hand it off to staffers. For one thing, most of those people come in because they want to serve their constituents and change things. They start off dying to know what their constituents want them to do. They wouldn't hand such a direct line of communication off to their staffers because most of them have never had staff that would handle such things. Traditionally the freshmen start off asking and asking their constituents what they want, holding town meetings, etc., and get a deafening silence in return. Or they get the same lobbyists/special interests/kooks following them around like groupies. Eventually if they last they just say what the hell and do what the special interests want, because the public won't speak up and it never seems like they get to hear from normal people.
So if you think about it, having these guys blog is an exceptionally good thing. It retards their developing a BeltWay mentality, innoculates them to some extent against special interests, and gives them better guidance on how they should vote. In my book that's good for democracy.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
As the Senator's webmaster, I can tell you he doesn't read his podcasts. He does have communications staff and researchers as all Senators do, but he gets the point of podcasts and prides himself not reading from a prepared statement.
The usual process is he decides what to talk about that week, writes down a few bullet points and then I hit record. Occasionally he'll have supporting docs as well if there are statistics or quotes he wants to use, but in general it's an extemporaneous podcast.
Take yesterday's podcast for example, he didn't have any staff in his meeting with the President, so it doesn't make sense that someone else would write what the meeting was about just for him to read it.
For the podcasts he recorded from the Middle East, I set up a Skype Voicemail account that he called and I pulled it off with Audio Hijack Pro.
Plug: Subscribe to the podcast with iTunes or with your favorite podcast client(rss feed).
http://www.saila.com/journalism/thirty.shtml
...to decency, honesty, and working for their constituents.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Awww, how quaint. The creaky old big wigs on Capitol Hill have decided to move in to the 21rst century. They should have realized the potential of weblogs long ago but they were too busy trying to find ways to tax commerce on the internet and drafting draconian intellectual property rights laws with the RIAA to take notice.
TWiT: This Week in Tech (former Tech TV Screensavers)
dl.tv (former Tech TV Screensavers)
diggnation (again, former Tech TV Screensavers)
CreativeCOW.net (Digital Media)
Shields and Brooks (Newshour Political Podcast)
NPR Technology (collected stories about tech from the previous week)
KCRW's The Treatment
Ricky Gervais (BBC's The Office, Extras)
Yeah, our Prime Minister here in Australia has had a blog for a few years now.
http://johnhoward.blogspot.com/
It's all about keeping in touch with the little people, keeping
it real, you know?
Damn. It's only a matter of time now before they catch on to other things. Like Pokemon. God help us all.
http://www.montesolberg.com/blog.htm
Monte has been blogging for a while now, and "eventhough" he doesn't have my political views usually, he's witty and smarmy which makes for a good read.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
General Wes Clark, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, and is considered as a potential 2008 candidate, not only blogs, but also goes into the comments on his blogs and answers questions there. It's not a staffer doing it for him.
He's done this not only on his own blog site, but also when he guest blogs on the the TalkingPointsMemo and on some Washington Post editorials (where there's even a Washington Post moderator watching as Clark personally answers blog questions.)
Unlike other politicians, he gets into the trenches and personally answers comments on his blogs.
Blogging is moving up the political foodchain: 18 months ago at the innaugural Personal Democracy Forum, Congressman Anthony Weiner stated on the opening panel that politicians wouldn't care unless and until blogging caused mainstream media coverage that in turn affected mainstream consciousness (http://www.personaldemocracy.com/node/556). Meanwhile an IRC room set up for people in the audience scrolled flame on a giant projection screen behind him. The audience numbered less than 200.
This June, by contrast, more than 2000 will gather for YearlyKos, the innaugural national bloggers convention for the Daily Kos community, the event will be keynoted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and I'm betting (it will be in Las Vegas after all) that all the 2008 Democratic Presidential hopefuls will be there-- just to try to impress and be one with the bloggers.
So, political blogging has gone mainstream and is de rigeur for up and coming politicians.
Which begs the question: what will be next online political revolution be?
I'm betting that it's going to be the mainstreaming of online advocacy communities. Where blogging has broadened the range of people with a political voice that can be heard and eventually percolate up to mainstream media, online advocacy communities are already greatly expanding the range of people and organizations that through their collective action can actually impact the outcome of an election. It's going to make having a heavily funded campaign less critical, and being an authentic and inspiring candidate way more potent (fingers crossed). DailyKos morphing into YearlyKos is a hint of this evolution already underway within the blogosphere itself. The fact that YearlyKos, The Onion, Air America, Spread Firefox and (Senator Chris) Dodd.Senate.Gov all use the same open-source platform-- community-built CivicSpace/Drupal-- is another.