An interesting followup to bloggergate, the sad story of the wingnut takedown of Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte and Shakespeare’s Sister’s Melissa McEwen after they joined the Edwards campaign. For background, see posts from tigtog, Mark and me accessible via this link.
Lindsay Beyerstein, who writes her own blog at Majikthise, has now revealed in an article for Salon that she was the first blogger approached to join the campaign. Lindsay isn’t bragging, but she’s got a very different and interesting take on why bloggers and campaigns don’t necessarily mix.
I knew that if I was blogging for Edwards, anything I said on Majikthise would be a potential liability for the candidate, even if I wasn’t talking about politics.
And aside from the risks to the campaign, I wasn’t sure this arrangement would be healthy for my blog. With this responsibility weighing on my mind, how could I continue to deliver the independent perspective that my readers value? If I were suddenly on a candidate’s payroll, yet still posting my own “independent” thoughts on Majikthise, what would my longtime readers think? Would they still trust me? Should they? Full disclosure wasn’t going to solve the problem of divided loyalties.
As she points out:
The blogosphere isn’t just “The Situation Room” with swear words, it’s a space for writers to explore ideas that are outside the bounds of mainstream discourse.
If you hire these larger-than-life personalities to blog for John Edwards, they’ll have to stop espousing many of the radical policy positions and unconventional values that made them popular in the first place.
So can blogging and mainstream politics mix?
Maybe the more partisan DailyKos and MyDD style ones, she argues. But the independent blogosphere, and that’s the feminist blogosphere tout court, gains its strength precisely from abstaining from slavish partisanship.
The Edwards campaign wants decentralized people-powered politics. Ironically, by hiring well-known bloggers to manage a destination Web site, it was actually centralizing and micromanaging. Every campaign needs a blog, but the most important part of a candidate’s netroots operation is the disciplined political operatives who can quietly build relationships with bloggers outside the campaign. And the bomb-throwing surrogates need to be outside, where they can make full use of their gifts without saddling a campaign with their personal political baggage.
It’s interesting to ponder if there are any parallels in Australian politics. Obviously the blogosphere is nowhere near as influential, and there’s no “netroots”. But anyway, what responsibilities do Australian bloggers have to their readers in an election year?
Some right wing blogs tend to be quite partisan, at least in a left/right sense. On the centre and the left, blogs like Labor First have never really taken off. Andrew Bartlett’s blog is respected as a source of thoughtful opinion, but then the Democrats pride themselves on their independence from slavish party line thinking. There are lots of left wing bloggers in Australia who want desparately to see Howard defeated. None are likely to be offered jobs by Kevin Rudd, I would hazard a guess. But we contribute best to our political objectives, I’d have thought, because our commentary and our opinions aren’t slavishly devoted to Labor (or Green or Democrat) party cheerleading. Rather, as Lindsay says, the best of the independent blogs are able to offer critical support to campaigns to defeat the right, but also to explore ideas that aren’t mainstream, and to give the pollies a serve when they need one. That’s the strength of the blogosphere, and long may it continue.
I’d hope that blogs could have even more ambition than mere ‘critical support’.
It seems fairly true that having an interesting blogging voice is difficult to do if you have to maintain the discipline of a party line. As Kim points out, Senator Bartlett is in a unique position, in a party which makes a virtue of difference. Perhaps their rather difficult electoral situation means that no-one has a real interest in stopping him doing something that might attract support.
What I think blogs can do are:
1) act as “think-tanks”
2) help partisans and activists to find each other and plan campaigns
3) Have their ideas cherry-picked by the mainstream media
4) If they go mainstream (a big ‘if’)- help to both get new ideas across to people who aren’t especially into politics, and to get those people taking a more active interest in politics.
I’d suggest that 4) is more likely to happen if the bloggers reach out into the mainstream media and everyday life with their messages. Perhaps one example is the way Stephen Mayne comments on shareholders’ rights.
I certainly don’t see LaborFirst as getting out of the “HoWARd Suxs!” ghetto, at least on the blog. No real analysis about how to win a majority of Australians over to their ideas.
They do have an interesting ‘Branch Charter‘, which is good as far as it goes, but does not address why ALP powers might not want branches to be effective.
BTW, the Labor First link goes to The Bartlett Diaries as well.
Oh, thanks, David, that’ll be the third Merlot. Will fix.
I agree about points 1-4. I just don’t think we’ve reached critical mass yet.
I believe they can, and both would be the better for it if they did mix.
However, I suspect it’s fair to say that major parties don’t see indivudal blogging by MPs as a very electorally valuable activity, otherwise they would already be doing it.
But I don’t think it would work bringing existing ‘outside’ bloggers into a person’s campaign as Edwards tried in the USA. Australian electoral politics is very differnt from USA electoral politics - although in both cases I think if candidates are going to have a blog, they need to do a fair bit of the blogging themselves (unless they just want their blog to be a place to announce things so people can cheer at them, in which case it’s really just a website, not specifically a blog).
I think we should spend more time looking for ideas at the UK and the many blogs done by politicians and party members there, rather than than the USA. Our electoral systems and political culture are more similar.
I should note that I try to make my own blog specifically a personal one, rather than a Democrat one. I’ve tried to keep it that way from the start so it wasn’t mindlessly partisan, although as it happens it also now reflects more of the approach I’ll be taking with the election itself.
But I believe it would be much harder for a major party MP to blog in a way which displayed independent views and thoughts about mainstream issues - our whole party system, and certainly the way electoral politics is analysed and reported by the mainstream media in Australia strongly discourages anything which could be seen or portrayed as contrary to the party Leader’s position.
Which means the only interesting blog from a major party MP would be the party leader’s, and given the control freakery that exists around modern election campaigning, I find it hard to imagine such blogs being able to portray any sense of being genuinely personal. Perhaps I’m wrong.
That means the role of ‘outside’ bloggers probably needs to be more important in Australia than, say, the UK, where the MPs and and candidates can do it themselves, or the USA where partisan group tihnk blogs seems to play a role in rallying the team and reinforcing attacks on the opposition.
Personally, I can’t see how anyone can find the uber-partisan cheersquad type blogs of the ‘left’ and ‘right’ which infests the blogoshpere in the USA interesting. While there are some good pieces on some of them from time to time, I can’t see how they help persuade genuine undecided voters. Of course the USA has the need to enthuse people enough to get them out to vote, (as does the UK), which is not something we need to worry about here (not much anyway, although getting people to be bothered to be on the roll in the first place is a bigger problem than is often assumed).
FWIW, I think political bloggers in Australia should focus on trying to get real information (as opposed to pre-packaged sloganeering and talking points with the depth of a 30 second TV commercial) out into the public domain as much as possible, in away which might engage the undecided, rather than reinforce the pre-conceived views of the converted. It is this ‘value add’ role which I think is the most important (at least at this stage of the blogosphere’s evolution). The more independent from a party something appears, the more effective it will be at this. (I mean this in repspect to ‘outside’ bloggers, not blogs by MPs or political parties).
If any of us were to be hired by Rudd (or anyone else) it would hardly be in our interests to make that knowledge public, well, at least untill after the campaign.
Thanks, Andrew, for your thoughts - it’s the role of “outside” blogs I’m most interested in. That’s the point I’m making with reference to what are essentially “cheer squad” blogs - I don’t think they have much value in the Australian context.
The best bloggers are informal essayists, whether political or not. Of course they’d be hampered by being roped into a partisan campaign - they would prefer informal, loose arrangements - if they want any arrangements at all. Maybe Edwards recognises that and wants to capture that freedom of ideas [capturing freedom - hmmm] in promoting his campaign, but it’s a dangerous game - he’ll either end up being badly mauled by those he’s trying to get onside or he’ll tame them to the extent that nobody takes them seriously any more. Your analysis and that of Beyerstein is pretty well spot on, but isn’t it interesting how commercial/moneyed/mainstream forces try to exploit grassroots developments, from blogging to punk rock, inadvertantly turning it into something blander than bland, or trying to but generally just making themselves look silly.
Politics in the form of the Military-entertainment complex or Main Stream Media attention is already hurting Blogistan. The people of my country are no longer able to swear and engage in ribald jest. We cannot accept these tainted goods so long as the women fight alongside the men in my country. For to make benefit the glorious nation of Blogistan it would be better to throw all the polititians’ down the wells.
For the sake of the children.
Thanks, stewart.
One of the best analyses of this of course, as is appropriate since we’re in cyberspace (what an old-fashioned word), is William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/pattern.asp
mick, but that raises the whole astroturf issue. It would be highly unethical for someone to purport to be continuing as an independent blogger while actually having or hoping for rewards or preferment from a political party.
Kim, I agree totally. I’m just saying that if you were a so inclined Machiavellian bastard it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I generally second Senator Andy’s take, especially the bit about getting real info out into the public domain. And white anting the god awful current crop of partisan political pundits a la the Frank Devine and the Greens thread here.
Aside from Senator Andy, about the only other serving Western world pollie I can think of who has a good blog generally run free of party discipline is Boris Johnsons. You may disagree with his views but at least he argues them well and you can get stuck right into into disagreeing with ‘em in his often robust and hilarious threads.
If you were that sort of machiavellian bastard in the first place, mick, could you have established a readership by providing independent commentary? Surely, you can’t just flick the switch to partisan spin and hope no one notices? After all, the blogosphere readership are by definition almost very aware about political issues and nuances.
“One” I mean. I don’t mean you!
Boris is free of any sort of discipline at all, though, Nabs?
Except perhaps for the traditional vices of the upper class Tory MP…
“One of the best analyses of this of course, as is appropriate since we’re in cyberspace (what an old-fashioned word), is William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.”
Oh yes, trust old Bill to get how chat groups about cult artworks can be leveraged by the likes of Hubertus Bigend (or Tyler Brulee).
His new book, “Spook Country” apparently takes the idea of internet distributed memes and trophes impacting on contemporary meatspace even further. Funny how Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson’s work has all moved from the future to right now or even to the past.
Indeed! Just reading the blurb for Pattern Recognition from the link, he foresaw YouTube before it came along. If he runs for Vice-President on *Oscar Winner* Al Gore’s ticket, I recommend that he claim to have invented YouTube.
Don’t just read the blurb Kim, read the book. Among other things it’s a brillant study of modern viral marketing techniques in a long tail world. Any ambitious young web hustler would learn far more from it that any advertising or marketing course. And like any great story about making a work of art, it really makes you want to see the actual artwork that drives the narrative.
Oh, I’ve read the book, Nabs, but not for a few years. Hence my original comment. I didn’t realise he had a new one out - thanks for the heads up - I’ll pop into Brisvegas’ best sf independent bookstore, Pulp Fiction (plug because I don’t want anyone to buy it at Borders) tomorrow!
He’s been providing sneak peaks of his new tome at his blog over the last few months. Fossick around the last six months of the archives.
Sheesh! Why doesn’t google reader or something tell me about these things without me having to know them first!
Actually, Beyerstein IS bragging, and, by posting her “brilliant” analysis on a well-known e-zine, she hopes to draw more attention to her and her site.
Her concerns were notably private before the Marcotte/McEwan nonsense.
The rest of the world carries on. John Edwards will do just fine without her and her bigoted (anti-religious, anti-disability rights) ilk. It’s just a good thing this tempest in a teapot happened early in the campiagn.
William Gibson has a new book! Now that is something to leave the house for today. His was the first blog that I ever read.
Great post, BTW, Kim. In an election year it would be so easy to get caught up in becoming a cheer squad due to our strong desire to see Howard out of government. However, as you correctly point out, that would ultimately be detriment both to the blogosphere and to our actual political concerns - which do not, and should not, fit neatly into the policies of any political party. Long may critical appraisal remain part of the blogosphere’s response - regardless of who it is that we are criticising.
Do not feed the cyber-stalker, folks.
Susan Nunes has left similiar comments in scads of blogs that mention Beyerstein’s Salon article. She disagreed with Lindsay on a few high-profile events and therefore Lindsay is anti-religious and anti-disability rights, QED. No room for nuanced differences of opinion in Nunes’ world.
The cyber-stalking makes Beyerstein’s point for her though: opinionated high-traffic bloggers carry a lot of baggage with them, and if they hitch themselves to any particular campaign it’s going to get dumped in the candidate’s lap.
Andrew Bartlett is an odd politician. As a former Democrat I believe the Democrats are really good at policy, and representing under-represented voices, but I think they have been hopeless politicians from time to time. Particularly as politics becomes more and more about spin and smoke and mirrors, and handouts (to add yet another conjunction)
Bartlett’s, and the blogs I like generally represent independent voices, who are not afraid of attacking all sides of politics. Particularly as I believe the media tends to find it too easy to re-report what other media sources have published. Blogs should present new and different ideas, and they should be able to have a rant every now and then.
Thats what I strive to do on my blog, but obviously not very well, as nobody much reads my blog. Contributing to debate on other blogs is pretty important, and if you’re working for a politician, then you’re not really interested in what other bloggers have to say, only in pushing your line…
Surely the biggest impediment to the co-option/participation of bloggers in Australia is the huge difference in the way elections operate here, as opposed to in the US. Unless there is a leadership spill imminent, (usually only for a fun-packed week or two) policy formulation is subject to tight party discipline. When a presidential election is looming in the US, however, the major parties (whose discipline is much looser than in Australia to start with) fragment into dozens of little parties with the result that there zillions of ideas that can be thrown into the mix. Policy is often formulated on the run, floated, discussed and discarded as the candidates track their trajectory back and forth across the political spectrum. There is much more room for a maverick voice when the system is designed for fluidity.
That’s a very superficial way of seeing it, Nahum. A lot of people who work for candidates and politicians are very interested in policy discussions and genuinely finding the best ideas. There’s a difference though between that and their other aim of making sure their candidate is successful. There’s much conflict between the two aims, and it can be very difficult, but just because you see the results of the latter goal a lot more often does not mean that the former isn’t just as important to them. There’s a reason they’re doing the latter, remember, and it’s a lot to do with getting the power they need to achieve their policy goals.
It’s been pointed out a lot that the system we have in Australia is not conducive to the kind of campaigning we’re seeing in the US. Personally, I can’t see that changing anytime soon. But just because they aren’t participating in a public way with blogs doesn’t mean they aren’t a. reading and being influenced by them and b. participating in a non-public or anonymous way.
So yeah, I think the best thing we can do here to work towards getting non-Coalition control of the Senate again is to really examine all the policies coming out of each party and criticise when we need to, persuade when we need to.
Commenters underestimate the political clout of the blogosphere at their peril. Ned Lamont got the Dem nomination for a US Senate seat in Connecticut in the 2006 election with the help of sites like firedoglake and Next Hurrah, knocking off Joe Liebermann to the joy of rabid anarchists and less volatile citzens of Leftish persuasion. “Rape Gurney” Joe ran as a Democrat Independent, bolstered by Belway megabucks,and with the frenzied help of the MSM rolled Lamont on the big day last November.
Ned Lamont’s “close, but no cigar” effort could never have happened without the writing and influence of bloggers like Christy Hardin-Smith, Emptywheel, Jane Hamscher and a whole bunch more.
You can’t do scoop better than live blogging from the source by talented and passionate experts.
A broader bow on the political influence of quality blogs:
Glenn Greenwald, formerly of Unclaimed Territory, a brilliant US Pol analysis site has ascended the cyber food chain to Salon where he gets trump touting. His book “How Would A Patriot Act” went from Siberia to No.1 on Amazon in a matter of days, remaing there for a similar period, solely on its sizzle in cyberspace. Many young people who vote and are appoaching electoral enrollment birthday receive much of their “political information” from clips of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on their blog rounds. Team Hillary swallowed Salon “War Room” ace, Peter Daou to help “Triangulate” her way, less successfully of late, to the Dem Pres. nomination for 2008.
The political influence of blogs is so powerful in China that company’s like Google and Yahoo co-operate with authorities by closing inappropriate sites. Not that that sort of this cound happen in a democracys as robust as ours.
Then there’s the rise and rise of Wonkette.
Not sure, but I don’t think Judith Miller had her own homepage. A good stenographer always needs something to fall back on.
Thanks, Cristy. Did you get the book?
Turns out that it doesn’t come out until August this year!
[Yes, I was devastated, but may get over it with time and therapy…]
I blame Nabs!