I’d have pointed you to this Express-News story about blogs no matter what since I’m quoted in it, and the rules of blogging state that any media mention must be trumpeted, but there’s an angle here that fascinates me.
During the recent gubernatorial debate, independent Kinky Friedman cast the Internet as “the work of Satan.” Considering the swipes bloggers have taken at his campaign, his stance may be understandable.
Last month, a Democratic-leaning blog called the Burnt Orange Report posted audio of a racially charged joke the satirist made during a 1980 performance he later said – in news reports that followed the posting – was packed with material to offend everyone.
The blog and others also recycled an excerpt from a cable news interview a year ago in which Friedman said sexual predators should sit in prison with “a Negro talking to himself.”
The online snippets emerged shortly after a TV news interview in which Friedman had referred to some Hurricane Katrina evacuees remaining in Houston as “crackheads and thugs.”
The resulting uproar put Friedman in the uneasy position of denying he was a racist.
[…]
Despite Friedman’s distaste for the Internet, his spokeswoman, Laura Stromberg, said she reads as many as a dozen blogs per day – not that she often likes what she reads about her candidate.
“The blogs do tend to break a lot of stories,” Stromberg said. “These blogs – the mainstream media monitor them to some extent. That’s why I never underestimate them.”
But unlike newspapers, most political blogs, which often swap information with one another, make no bones about their leanings.
“These blogs all have an agenda, and they have no accountability,” Stromberg said.
Of course we have accountability. You should see the status reports that Kos makes us all fill out on a daily basis. Dude makes us document our time in six-minute intervals. You don’t want to know what happens if we take too many potty breaks during the day.
Just kidding. But when someone writes the postmortem of this election, I’ll want to know why it is that an outsider campaign like Kinky’s didn’t leverage blogs to its own advantage from the beginning. Friedman in particular could have gotten national coverage of his campaign this way, and it would have been more than the same old “hey look! he’s a comedian! and he’s running for governor!” puff pieces that have plagued us since 2003. It’s a bit mindboggling to realize that the two independent candidates – the people without any built-in political infrastructure to depend on – had easily the crappiest online presence in the race. Obviously, both Friedman and Strayhorn built enough of a community to easily clear the petition requirement to get on the ballot. Maybe I’m myopic, but I don’t see that they’ve done all that much with that community since then.
What blogging can do for a campaign, as much as anything, is help establish a narrative – about the candidate, about the opposition, about the campaign and the people involved with it. Distributed opposition research is an added bonus. I think a lot of what’s dogged Kinky Friedman, Gene Seaman, and Martha Wong would have been in the news without blogs, but it’s clear that blogs have driven a nontrivial amount of that coverage. Friedman hasn’t been able to do anything about it but play defense. That just feels like a lot of lost opportunity to me.
Bottom line is that I don’t know why any campaign wouldn’t want to actively engage potential allies via blogs. I really don’t know why a so-called “outsider” campaign wouldn’t want to do that. Maybe some day someone within the Friedman campaign will articulate the logic behind that decision.
Finally, if you want some more evidence of how blogs can affect campaigns and how a good candidate might try to avoid the Friedman mistake and engage them, Mark has a long and thorough post on the subject. Check it out.
Sometimes I wonder if the four or five principal “progressive” blogs read anything except their own reprintings of each others stories.
Kinky’s had a ridiculous internet presence for the better part of the year. He’s had viral videos up on youtube, a massive presence on both myspace and facebook (Kinky currently has the most support of any gubernatorial candidate in the nation by a large, large margin on facebook), and yes, his own blogs. Check out http://www.getkinky.org, or http://www.texasgonekinky.blogspot.com, for example.
I understand – largely because I read this exact same story on PinkDome three days ago and another outlet of the Houston Chronicle this morning – how easy it is to write this story without actually researching it. Still, I guess I expected beter from you. You broke my heart, Kuffner. You broke my heart.
Of course we have accountability.
Yep, you guys have Kos. Conservatives have Rove, Ruffini, and the White House. You should see the mean emails I get when I stray from the talking points! Man oh man.
Just kidding as well. But some people believe that crap. It sounds like Richard Friedman might be one of them! 🙂 He doesn’t really need blogs, though. Active progressive bloggers were never going to support him, and I don’t know that there are many other people who are serious about politics who would be blogging him up. But he plays well among journalists who like his quirkiness, and MSM still has the influence. I’d rather have free MSM exposure than exposure from bloggers whose biggest single audience tends to be other bloggers.
Sometimes I wonder if the four or five principal “progressive” blogs read anything except their own reprintings of each others stories.
I already told you – we all read Kos’ daily briefing. Do I need to tell you again?
Yes, Kinky has had a good marketing presence online. I think we all agree that the man knows how to self-promote. How much help was that for him in last month’s news cycle?
And I disagree that active progressive bloggers were never going to support him. Friedman had the field to himself for almost two years. Quite a few progressive bloggers, including Karl-Thomas at the Burnt Orange Report, were exceedingly skeptical of Chris Bell at the start of this year. Friedman could have tried to engage any of us early on, and I think if he had he’d have won some converts. But he never tried. Maybe he thinks he can win without directly wooing Democratic voters. I think he’s wrong, but hey, it’s his campaign.
Still, I guess I expected beter from you. You broke my heart, Kuffner. You broke my heart.
Would you like me to kiss it and make it better?
I am convinced that whenever a blogger comments about his or another blogger’s influence on the “news cycle”, somewhere in heaven an angel explodes with a messy bang.
BOR’s attacks on Kinky have done nothing to hurt his standing in the polls, nor have they won Chris Bell a single Af-Am vote. According to McBlogger, Bell’s now polling at 33 percent among African Americans, down from 55 percent two months ago and far worse than any other Democratic candidate I can remember.
You post about blogs helping candidates run negative on their opponents without getting their hands dirty. Kinky’s not running negative on anyone. That’s part of the campaign strategy – let the career politicians confirm in the electorate’s mind how shrill and unpleasant they are, then coast into election day on the comparatively positive vibes. To that extent, blogs like BOR just give cowardly, opposition research-utilizing campaigns like Chris Bell’s and Rick Perry’s more opportunities to shoot themselves in the foot. Not that Chris Bell needs the help.
I wasn’t, incidentally, just being flippant when I said this blog broke my heart. There’s something wrong with taking away the one thing that makes blogs accountable (the ability of every reader to comment) while at the same time arguing for the power of blogs to maintain a narrative. You’re doctoring the narrative unfairly, in other words. And you’re doing it with lousy analysis predicated on poor research.
I’ve come to expect that from K-T and the Funky Bunch. I really did expect more from someone with journalistic cred bolstering his passion.
Whatever you say, dude. And while I’m glad you think I have “journalistic cred”, I’ve never claimed such a thing. Please spare me the concern troll act.
A concern troll is someone who pretends to not be a supporter of a candidate while secretly working to advance that candidate’s agenda. For example, a Republican booster who posts on the website of a Dem candidate claiming to be an angry Democratic voter.
I’ve never claimed to be anything put a Kinky supporter, and certainly didn’t claim otherwise in my comments to your blog post. For what it’s worth, I’m not a paid campaign worker. I *am* a pro-Kinky blogger, though. Hence the link to a blog in every comment I’ve made.
BOR’s attacks on Kinky have had no effect Jeremy? You should check out the latest polls and our front page.
Charles is older and wiser (in both age and political knowledge) and he’s just as sharp on political winds as any other blogger in the state. Honesly, I have no idea why the Houstonian who sent us the Kinky tape didn’t send it to Kuff to break. But ever since that, you’d be hard pressed to see the media write any more of those puff pieces on “oh look at Kinky, ain’t he so neat”.
Hell, Kinky even lost the endorsement of the Austin Chronicle today. That’s saying something.