Comments on: Blog P.I. Presents: Your 2006 Campaign Blog Scandal Guide

By: Sunrunner

Sunrunner — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 23:52:19 +0000

Well, one must assume that these types of “little tricks” are all too common in the virtual world of campaigning, so it really is a tempest in a teapot, and doesn’t address the real issues of campaign finance shenanigans and voter manipulation/fraud (isn’t there an emergency spending bill up to fund states who have lost control of their new electronic voting machines?). G

uess they haven’t learned to hire some tech savy trolls.

Tor anyone?

By: DavidNYC

DavidNYC — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 23:40:38 +0000

Lotta emm-ess-emm coverage of the Bass scandal today.

By: Mark Gisleson

Mark Gisleson — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:06:18 +0000

In the Klobuchar column, the Internet sleuth was Minnesota Democrats Exposed, which is written by Michael Brodkorb, who also happens to be the sock puppet in this one.

Incredibly, MN bloggers have been unable to get the Minnesota media to look into the fact that Michael Brodkorb is a paid consultant to the Mark Kennedy campaign, a paid consultant with Weber Johnson, a PR firm doing work for the Republicans, and yet also runs a stand alone attack blog which is taken at face value by the local media as a news source without ever providing any context.

Time for a blogger ethics panel!!!

By: Mary Katharine Ham

Mary Katharine Ham — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 20:32:58 +0000

Blog Scandal– Color-Coded and Hyperlinked

Blog P.I. is keeping a chart of ‘06 cycle blog scandals.
The chart’s bound to get bigger.

By: DavidNYC

DavidNYC — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:35:57 +0000

DBK, great points. I’ve always said the media loves to go after small, easily provable lies, and you’re exactly right here: That’s precisely what happened with Kean.

And re gyro… LOL!

By: DBK

DBK — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:24:44 +0000

In the Kean “concern trolling/astroturfing” (Astroturfgate? Doesn’t really sing, does it?), the Kean campaign unintentionally turned it into bigger news than it had to be. Because they let the Bluejersey folks control the story and just issued denials and tried to laugh it off, with a bit of a sneer for good measure, and included an outright and provable lie or two in the mix, the media ran with it. I don’t think the media likes being lied to outright. You can spin them like a gyroscope (mmmmm….gyro), but don’t lie to them outright because it is foolish and they love to play “gotcha”. Anyway, the story wound up in the Star Ledger, the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and on the AP and UPI news services. It also got shown on ABC-7 news (that’s TV for you folks outside the New York-Metropolitan area). Hazelbaker, the Kean campaign spokesperson, could have said, “I better investigate, and sorry if anyone was offended. We’ll discipline the low level staffer who did this as soon as we decide who to scapegoat.” Instead, she denied and then claimed the IP address was no longer in use as aof a month previous, except it was on emails she sent out under her own names a few days before.

Whoopsies! How’d that happen?

I would say more, but it’s lunchtime and now I have to go get a gyro.

Mmmmmmm…gyro.

By: Noah Kunin

Noah Kunin — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:49:03 +0000

Great round-up. Thanks for stating the situation as ongoing. Keep up the good work.