Contemplating the influence of blogs on state and local politics

Over at Delawareliberal there is an ongoing conversation about the impact that blogs can have on State and local politics; definitely worth reading and participating in.

Quite obviously one of my purposes here has been to give publicity to Libertarian candidates around the country, even at the risk of sometimes losing my non-Libertarian Delaware audience.

Most of the significance attached to political blogs (which are read--at most--by 1-2% of voters) has been discussed from a national perspective, but as I drive back from the beach tonight I'll be ruminating on the limits of the possible in other contexts.

Some questions on my mind:

If blogs become attached to particular candidates and aid their fund-raising, what happens to the intellectual independence of those blogs? (What do you do if the candidate you've been fund-raising for shits all over one of your favorite issues?)

How do you build traffic to get, maybe, 5% of the voters reading blogs?

How do turn those readers from passive recipients of your brilliance into activists?

How do you make some bucks (or should you) out of this enterprise in order to do more?

Not that I've solved any of these issues, but I do have some thoughts forthcoming tonight and tomorrow.

Now (sigh) to pack up the beach umbrella.

Comments

Anonymous said…

I have been volunteering for three campaigns so far. The people running are thoroughly vetted before I'd spend energy, though I don't have a litmus that says we are eye to eye on every issue, there isn't much of a gap so far. In two on these cases, the candidates are supporting another candidate I abhor. I did state that if said candidate was being actively or jointly campaigned for than I would walk.
That is about as far as that kind of issue went. So far I am in.

For the record I actively support Karen Hartley-Nagle, Thomas Gordon and Bill Dunn.

July 20, 2008 at 7:10 PM

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