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Political Bloggers: Netroots or Nutroots?
My son and I have argued over time about the potential influence of political blogs, ie. whether they constitute "netroots" or "nutroots". His fairly traditional coursework taught him that the left cancels out the right in the grassroots and the numbers of the liberal blogosphere were not significant enough to make much difference.
Recently, as he nears graduation, his position is beginning to shift as the influence of blogs continues to grow as political science professors and political candidates watch with fascination. I gave him Joe Trippi's book about the internet. It turned out to be the text for one of his classes. I think he's almost ready to admit that mother knows best.
Recently Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos was in Seattle to promote his book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, with Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, who coined the term "netroots". I wrote about it here the next day, and he referenced the article in a diary on his blog. This morning I read a very interesting article in one of our local papers called "Political Bloggers Step in to Rally the Troops: Sites create buzz, raise funds for candidates."
It relates how one of our local congressional candidates is a former blogger who decided to run for office in a Republican district, against a popular Sheriff who was instrumental in catching the Green River Killer. Bloggers helped her raise enough to qualify for inclusion in the national "red to blue" program, which qualifies her for additional aid. "If that's not a sign of the growing power and influence of the local blogs, I'm not sure what is," Markos Zuniga wrote online.
From the Seattle Times article:
The coinage "blog" comes from Web log and refers to an Internet site whose creator updates it with news or opinions on a theme while allowing visitors to type in comments that can be read by all other viewers. The most active blogs, frequently updated, spur streams of comments that enable virtual conversations among an online community that, in the case of a megablog such as Daily Kos, can total 1 million visitors a day.
Burner is not the first politician to benefit from fund-raising exhortations by sympathetic bloggers: Howard Dean was similarly blessed in his wired campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, and bloggers take credit for generating $60,000 in six hours to get out the vote for Paul Hackett, a Democrat who narrowly lost his long-shot attempt to take a solidly Republican congressional seat in a special election in Ohio in 2005.
Those campaigns were anointed by the national liberal blogosphere, as Burner's was not. But the blogosphere is growing exponentially -- from fewer than 2 million blogs in January 2004, when Dean's campaign imploded in Iowa, to more than 39 million today, according to Technorati.com -- and local stories such as Burner's could become more common.
Blogs score their biggest hits when they break attention-getting stories that the mainstream media miss, such as Seattle blogger David Goldstein's reporting that Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, prepped for his government career as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association.
More from the article (remembering that Jerome Armstrong coined the term "netroots"):
The leading local blogger on the right, Stefan Sharkansky of Seattle, dismisses the liberal blogging alliance as the "nutroots."
Daniel Drezner, co-editor of the forthcoming book "The Political Promise of Blogging," is skeptical of blogs' ability to have a significant effect on political fund raising. An assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago, Drezner says few blogs have the clout to deliver, and even those seem unlikely to move beyond one-shot appeals.
To Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, the larger question is whether blogs can change voting patterns. Their rabid partisanship attracts mostly true believers, and they end up screeching to the choir. "Blogs are good for motivating the base," Shirky said. "They're not good for convincing swing voters." Yet even as echo chambers, blogs will grow in political influence, he said. "The total reader population of blogs has gone up dramatically," he said. "The blogosphere is going to become increasingly of a scale that will swing first House races, then Senate races and then eventually presidential races."
In a recent address to students at Liberty University, John McCain attacked the blogosphere":
When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me, and, consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of my insights…It’s a pity that there wasn't a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium.
What do you think the influence of blogs will be in the 2006 elections and beyond?
Conn will be telling!
As if the MSM had any clue....online I find people asking thoughtful (and others also) questions and doing, on my god, research.....
John McCain sold his soul many moons ago, and if he wants to be in denial about the power of blogs, then so be it. He'll be wearing rubber pants and eating gruel in a place called "Sunnyvale" soon anyway.
I disagree with the elbow patch professor quoted above as saying that blogs cannot persuade swing voters... Um.... I beg to differ, Mr. Goatee Pipe Smoking Turtleneck Yutzbag... We saw it in 2004 every signel day.
What color is the sky in this guy's world?
Excuse me. Every SINGLE day...
My son told me John McCain tried to use the internet when he ran against Bush and soured on it.
I remember Karen telling me about people who are "influentials" - and it's not the absolute NUMBER of people on the internet, but how active they are. That is a good argument for people who use the argument that the blogosphere is only a few extremists from the left & right.
That may have been more the case in the beginning, but it would be hard to argue that now, with people like my Republican uncle sending me Cheney cartoons (though he may not have a blog). He also sends me any article on "blogs" he comes across.
Try telling a politician you are a blogger & see what happens. I have been asked to consult with a local representative's internet staff, had national level candidates take more time for photography & words etc. - if they knew. Don't let anyone tell you we aren't influential.
This is how we are influential:
Study: Blog Readers An Elite Minority
by Gavin O'Malley, Monday, Mar 14, 2005 6:45 AM EST
BLOG READERS MIGHT STILL BE small in number, but they are among the most influential groups in the United States, according to a study by blog ad network Blogads.com, released Friday. The report, issued by Blogads.com founder Henry Copeland, concluded that most blog readers were "involved, upscale, intelligent, individuals who also read Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, The New Yorker, National Geographic, The Nation and WSJ.com." For the Blogads study, Copeland surveyed more than 30,000 Internet users; respondents had visited at least one of 100 blogs to which he forwarded links to the survey.
More here:
http://tinyurl.com/pwzm5
In other words, we KNOW and we tell our neighbors.
We shall see if 'Blogger" is a useful moniker for the upcoming campaign season. Use it and see what happens--report back here ( Enquiring minds want to know reactions...)
"I'd like to let you in on a little secret -- there is no such thing as history. History is the name given to events in order to mark them for our forgetfulness. Nothing is really past us, in the same way that nothing is really with us -- it all changes between blinks of the eye, no two moments the same. Those ignorant of history are not doomed to repeat it -- that would be a staggering achievement. They are simply doomed to ignorance of everything else."
-- T. Jefferson Parker
'nuff said awready,
Otter
Specter to Feingold: 'I don't need to be lectured by you'
Same-sex marriage hearing gets testy; amendment passes
Thursday, May 18, 2006; Posted: 12:13 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate committee approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage Thursday, after a shouting match that ended when one Democrat strode out and the Republican chairman bid him "good riddance."
"I don't need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, shouted after Sen. Russ Feingold declared his opposition to the amendment, his affinity for the Constitution and his intention to leave the meeting.
"If you want to leave, good riddance," Specter finished.
"I've enjoyed your lecture, too, Mr. Chairman," replied Feingold, D-Wisconsin, who is considering a run for president in 2008. "See ya."
more...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/18/senate.gaymarriage.ap/index.html
Definition circa 1911 (courtesy Bert from Mpls):
CORPORATION, n.
An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Specter to Feingold:
"You are not the boss of me"
these kids today they got no respect,
Otter
Raw Story & AlterNet have story on how reporter Judith Miller & another reporter had warning of an imminent big, well-coordinated terror attack but didn't report on it.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/
Former_NY_Times_reporter_Judith_Miller_0518.html
Pat Robertson claims God warned him about the tsunami
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12851397/?GT1=8199
Why didn't PR do something about it? Reminds me of a story I heard the other day. The Beatles left India because they decided the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was kind of a creepy guru - he tried to fondle Mia Farrow. When he asked why they were leaving, John Lennon said, "If you're so cosmic, you should know."
The influence of the blogs is dependent upon their reliability. Truthout.org is a prime example. I still don't know if Leopold's "scoop" is true or not. But, a story like his is a prime example. Can it (truthout and the blogosphere in general) pass the test?