Blogs

Pete Daou and I appear to be reading from the same playbook.  At TechPresident, he writes many of the things I've been arguing for some time.

The pyramid of Internet political functions consists of message (communications), money (fundraising) and mobilization. Atop that pyramid sits communications. Message drives money and triggers mobilization. Devoid of a compelling message to spur their use, the most advanced web tools will lie fallow. The impetus to use technology is always external to the technology; the impulse to connect and contribute begins with the inspiration to do so and the inspiration derives from the message.

Daou is exactly right about the three points on the internet pyramid, and they are exactly the elements I named in my first post at The Next Right.  In another post about Obama's integrated new media campaign, I laid out the impact of blogs as follows...

• Messaging - communication, particularly targeted to specific audiences and influentials, rather than mass communication
• Mobilization - community development and reinforcement, online-to-offline activism; individual mobilization can be due to direct campaign contact, peer relationships, or general community influence
• Money - good fundraising is the result of doing #1 and #2 effectively; donations can reflect an investment in the ideas (#1), or in the relationship/movement (#2)

However, while I agree with Daou that mobilization and money are subsidiaries to message, I would argue that mobilization should be divided into two distinct areas.

• Activist mobilization is tangible, direct participation in politics; things like cavassing, voting, phone banking, volunteering and other political advocacy.  Activist mobilization is a tangible, direct participation in politics. 
• Community mobilization is conceptual buy-in; it is the organization of people around ideas, themes, priorities, ways of thinking.  Community mobilization makes people available and positioned for activist mobilization.

To put this in terms of the modern Left: progressives felt poitically powerless even during the 90's, they developed unifying grievances in four areas (Democratic and Republican Parties, the government and the media), and began messaging about those problems and their solutions.  As a result of the Left's powerful online information activism, millions of people organized around the progressive's themes and agenda.  That was community mobilization. 

It was only after those themes had been spread to, and accepted by, a large community (activists, philanthropists, media, politicians, and the general public) that the Left could create effective activist mobilization. 

Good tools are a force-multiplier, but they are not a shortcut.

The daily circulation of the top Newspapers in the country in 2008...

The daily circulation (visits) for Daily Kos...

The numbers are not perfectly equivalent, but they are striking, nonetheless.  This means something.

• Top newspaper: 2.28 million
• Top political blog: 2.68 million

There have been times, when I, as a Blogger, have wanted to bang my head on the desk. There are times, when I have become so frustrated at the level of stupidity being served by both sides of this political discourse, that I have seriously thought about just shutting this Blog down and disappearing into the mists of ether and finding something else to do. There are times, when I, as a Blogger, have shook my fist in righteous indignation at some of the things written by both sides of this political divide, that is called Politics.

However, this, my friends, is scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel. It seems that the Liberal Blogging world, with it’s lack of substantive accusations against John McCain, has, in fact, began publishing stories about a topic, that normally would not even receive the light of day in a legitimate publication; His Shoes.

That is right ladies and Gentleman; the liberal bloggers are now publishing stories about John McCain’s shoes. This female blogger at the Huffington Post by the name of Isabel Wilkinson, whose political credentials are that of a Dallas cowboy cheerleader, wrote a rather vain piece about the kind of shoes that John McCain wears. I have to honestly wonder aloud, who in the Huffington Post was the recipient of this woman’s oral sex, for her to get that job as a writer. Because whoever they were, they hired a real winner here.

I am not a John McCain cheerleader, not by a long shot. However, this sort of lame attempt by the left to paint John McCain as some sort of out of touch, rich, elitist is about the lamest thing I have ever read, in a good long while. This ranks up there with the New York Times piece on the supposed affair that McCain was having with a lobbyist.

It is not that I am against criticizing John McCain, not at all. There are legitimate concerns that I have with McCain as well, his closeness to Bush, his ties to lobbyists, his wanting to bomb Iran, but to write an article about his shoes? How absurd. The left can much better than this, and they know it. The quicker they start doing that, the better, because right about now, they look like total idiots in my eyes, and I would imagine in the eyes many other people as well.

(H/T Memeorandum)

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Conservative, Democrat, Democrats, Editorial, Election ‘08, Election 2008, Freedom of Speech, John McCain, Liberal, Liberals, Libertarian, McCain, Netroots, Opinion, Politics, Republican, Republicans, Stupidity, White House, blogging

Cross Posted @ Political Byline

I’m late to posting this, as I’ve been traveling for a few days, but better late than never. The nice people at Bloggingheads.tv were kind enough to invite me to participate in Friday’s edition of The Week in Blog. I was joined by regular host Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis (to whom I am very grateful; he was very kind, patient and thoughtful).

I am particularly enjoying the commenters at Bloggingheads.tv, many of whom seem to think that, as far as monsters go, I'm tolerable.  My favorite, I think, is this one…

Overall, though, I think Jon did a good job of defending the indefensible. Hope he comes back.

Thanks!  I think.

How important are blogs and the internet media?

[Rep.] Putnam says the handhelds have actually broadened the horizons for a lot of his colleagues. The BlackBerry has increased the “comfort level” with the Internet in general, he says, “so you have members talking about what’s on Drudge or Town Hall or Red State.”

The devices, he says, have “dragged members out of the Dark Ages and into the information age. You now have members conversant about blogs, online news sites, signed up for breaking news alerts. So they’re actually less insulated today ... than they were before BlackBerry.”

Politicians and political staff are inundated with information, so they necessarily have to create a cocoon around themselves and self-select the information they want to receive.  If they didn't do this, they would be overwhelmed.  Blogs are one of the few information sources that pierce that cocoon, whether with politicians and Congressional staffers, political departments and agencies, issue pundits/experts, or the media that cover all of them.

In light of that, think about this:

• How much money is spent on advertising in publications and billboards that are likely to be read by members of Congress and Congressional staff?   [Hint: a lot]  
• How much time is spent talking to reporters and pundits about information being considered in Congress?  [Hint: also a lot]

 As much as blogs and the internet media have developed, they are still an under-developed market with enormous untapped potential.

On my own blog (www.kungfuquip.com) I have spent considerable digital ink discussing the things the GOP is doing wrong, and calling out the more egregious acts of folly in which the right's infrastructure engages.

For my inaugural post on this new outlet, I thought I'd take a closer look at some of the incremental steps I see in the right direction.  A recent e-mail exchange with a colleague pointed out one such item I had overlooked - John McCain's "McCain Report".

While I still must point out some of the things I find awkward about McCain's blogs (not the least of which is that he has two of them that seem to compete with one another), I will note that Goldfarb's content seems to be vastly superior to what is ostensibly their flagship blog - titled simply the "McCain Blog".

The McCain Blog is largely the sort of press release and dull e-mail fodder we've come to expect from campaigns.  It recaps the latest rally and pimps "new eco-friendly items" available in the McCain store.  It gets updated every few days.  The one upshot is they do allow discussion.

Goldfarb's McCain Report, on the other hand, is actually good.  It's not full of PR fluff and cheerleading. It's updated several times a day and it contains substantive material.  It is what campaign blogs should be (save for the fact that McCain should occasionally author posts, which he so far has not).

Take one recent piece triggered by a Ben Smith item in the Politico:

As Ben Smith reported yesterday, the Obama campaign recently brought Jason Furman on as a senior economic advisor. Smith notes that Furman wrote a lengthy defense of Wal-Mart in 2005, titled "Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story." In it Furman denies that Wal-Mart is suppressing wages, or exploiting their employees. The fact "that more than 1.3 million Americans work at Wal-Mart demonstrates that its compensation is at least as good as the alternatives," he says. And he adds that “the available data is consistent with the premise that Wal-Mart pays wages that are comparable to the retail sector.”

 

His new boss takes a different view. In 2006, Obama told Fortune that "Wal-Mart is making enormous profits, and yet it has chosen to go with low wages and diminished benefits." And in 2007, Obama told union members that he won't even shop at Wal-Mart because of their exploitation of American workers. Has Obama moderated his views on Wal-Mart or will Furman and he just agree to disagree?

That is far from the typical piece on the campaign's other blog:

Today, John McCain addressed the threat of global climate change and outlined his strategy to lead America to meet its obligations as a steward of this planet. The centerpiece of his plan is a market-based system designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, mobilize innovative technologies, and strengthen the economy.

Be sure to watch the newest tv ad called, "A Better Way," then click here for more information on the McCain Plan.

I'm actually very pleased to see the McCain camp doing something well.  In fact, what impresses me most is the superior quality of the McCain Report when compared to the Obama blog.

Senator Obama released the following statement today in response to the news of the trade deficit increase:

Today we learned that the trade deficit jumped to its highest level in 13 months. This is not an accident. This is yet another sign of the failed economic policies of the Bush administration that John McCain seeks to extend – policies that reflect unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility and borrowing from abroad. Rather than get America’s fiscal house in order, Senator McCain is proposing $300 billion more in tax breaks and loopholes for big corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and he hasn’t explained how he’d pay for them. Just this week, John McCain reaffirmed his commitment to special interest-driven economic policies that will widen the trade deficit, but won’t help American automakers secure fair treatment in South Korea, and won’t ensure that China stops devaluing its currency and tilting the playing field against American workers. As President, Barack Obama will stand up for fiscal responsibility by restoring fairness to our economy, investing in a renewable energy future, and adopting a trade policy that serves the interests not just of multinational corporations but of America’s hardworking families.

You can learn more about Barack's stance on trade here.

That is a stark contrast.  The Obama team (vaunted as they are for their superior web skills) is running a dry boring blog, while McCain's team have at least begun to get it.  It's nice to see.

(As a side note, I'd like to offer two suggestions to Team McCain.  First, look into search engine friendly urls.  Second, optimize the meta tags on your blog posts to actually include the specific content of the post.  Especially with this new stuff critical of Obama, it's going to be important that people can actually find it.)