February 25, 2007
Why I refused to blog for Edwards
"Before Amanda Marcotte's short-lived tenure as blogger for the John Edwards campaign, I was offered the job. Here's why I said no."
3QD friend, and well known blogger, Lindsay Beyerstein in Salon:
"I'm probably not ... the person you want," I said, finally. "I mean, I'm on the record saying that abortion is good and that all drugs should be legalized, including heroin. Don't you think that might be a little embarrassing for the campaign?"
Bob assured me that my controversial posts weren't a problem as far as the campaign was concerned. They were familiar with my work. And Bob did seem to know my writing. I didn't get the impression he was a daily reader, but it was obvious he had been reading the blog for a while.
"That's you, that's not John Edwards," he said.
Bob was confident that people would understand the difference. I wasn't so sure.
"So, it's not a problem that I'm an outspoken atheist?" I asked.
Every blogger says controversial things from time to time, Bob assured me. He admitted that he'd drawn some fire for a tasteless joke on his own site a while back. It hadn't been a big deal.
More here.
Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 11:40 PM | Permalink
Comments
I agree with Ms. Beyerstein that outspoken bloggers are better off outside a campaign. The best way for a candidate to attract "netroots" support, if that is what the candidate wants, is to take positions that the netroots admires.
Candidates like Edwards (and perhaps Obama to some extent) are clearly looking for a new way to conduct campaigns that takes advantage of the WWW revolution in communications of the last few years, but there are going to be quite a few stumbles like the Edwards brouhaha until the right formula is discovered.
Posted by: JonJ | Feb 26, 2007 10:48:50 AM
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