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Archive for the 'Asymmetrical Media' Category

Will Elizabeth Edwards Resign, Too?

Published by William Beutler on February 17, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blog Consultants, Blog Fights, Blogging Officials, Brick-and-mortar consultants, Daily Kos, Democrats, Hotline, Internecine Battles, John Edwards, Online Campaigns and White House '08. 43 Comments

Earlier this week, Blog P.I. posed a question: Who was responsible for hiring bloggers in Edwardsville? The logical answer was Matt Gross, Edwards’ chief Internet strategist, and considering the resignations of said controversial bloggers, we idly wondered if Gross would be tendering his resignation as well.

But as the headline above has already given away, we may have blogged too soon — after all, there is someone else at the campaign who is a longtime member of the blogosphere, and it is someone who wields much more power than Gross.

It’s Elizabeth Edwards.

We certainly don’t know for a fact that EE (as we’ll refer to her from here on) recommended Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan for the jobs of blogmaster and blog wrangler (respectively) but we can demonstrate that she would have been in a position to know about them and to make such recommendations. And if it ever did come out that EE was responsible for this mess, it would renew questions about how much control she has over John Edwards’ campaign — and whether it hurts more than it helps.

So let’s get demonstrating:

Going back to at least the 2004 campaign, EE has not just been a mere reader of the blogs but also a commenter at some of the biggest sites on the left.

In April 2005 she took to task several members of the Democratic Underground community for making fun of right-wing radio talker Laura Ingraham’s breast cancer — EE is a breast cancer survivor herself — earning thumbs up from Michelle Malkin and others in the rightosphere.

She may have only commented at Daily Kos eight times from 2004 to 2005, but she was nevertheless one of the earliest to sign up: going by the sequential user ID numbers, EE was the 3,454th person to register; the site now has well over 100,000 registered accounts (not the same as active users).

Now, how much involvement does she actually have with blogs? Last year she told Campus Progress:

I spend a lot of time on the internet. I get a lot of information from blogs, I have a whole list including Talking Points [Memo], Daily Kos, Democratic Underground and more. Sometimes I check out the right wing sites to see what they are talking about. I have a whole folder of sites and I open them all up every day and see what catches my eye. … Sometimes I would post on blogs not under my real name. … But I had to stop doing that after John started running. Now I sometimes participate under my own name. I participate in blogs and newsgroups – not just political ones but other issues too.

Make no mistake, EE knows a lot more about the blogosphere than the average consultant.

And we also know that while she holds no official position with the campaign, she has something of a reputation for usurping the paid consultants’ authority (or so goes the chatter). In December of last year, she appeared in the comments of Illinois-focused ArchPundit to defend herself against claims that she led the ouster of star consultant David Axelrod, who handled Edwards’ media in 2004 (but this time is advising Barack Obama). As ArchPundit’s Larry Handlin put it, during the previous campaign

her handling of consultants and staff was problematic because she tends to micromanage and many would say she cuts people out of the loop. That’s a management problem. It’s also what probably endears her to those who love her and so it’s a double edged sword.

If that’s the case here, then we owe an apology to Matt Gross. Obviously there is no smoking gun evidence that EE was the instigator of the blog hires, but she most certainly would have been in a position to advise (and even make decisions) on the matter. It’s also not unreasonable to think EE would be a more avid reader of pointedly feminist blogs than Gross (not to impugn his feminist credentials). At the very least, she didn’t step in and warn that Marcotte’s rhetoric might be a little too hot for her to serve in a communications role.

Without more information, we’ll file this one under “more than plausible.” But Blog P.I. is not the first to suggest that EE had more involvement here than has been reported. Take this bit from National Journal’s most recent Dem rankings — where Edwards is ranked number three, where he has been since Obama’s emergence:

The 24 hours that elapsed between the MSM’s Blogger-gate stories and Edwards’ nuanced response has become this cycle’s unexplained, awkward Jeanine Pirro gap. We’d blame this on consultants, except Edwards routinely brags he doesn’t listen to them. This one’s on him (or her?).

Commenters at Pandagon seem to think Elizabeth Edwards was behind the decision, too. And in a Feb. 8 diary at Daily Kos, New Hampshire-based MissLaura posted a recent (but pre-controversy) interview with EE on blogs, dKos and the campaign. As MissLaura suggested in that post:

Edwards returned several times to the question of how much control campaign staff would have over what she says publicly, focusing on her efforts to resist such control. However the behind-the-scenes debate over whether to fire or stand behind Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan played out days later, we have to assume that it was at least in part shaped by the presence of a powerful figure who understands blogs and who habitually works against excessive homogenizing.

Others, such as early Dean blogger Dan Conley, have predicted that her blog involvement could be a problem — although not quite like this:

There are two ways to view Mrs. Edwards’ posting on blogs. Some will wonder how wise it is for Edwards to enter this swamp. Every blogger has a sane/insane ratio for political posts … we come to accept it from our peers. But when an aspiring First Lady says something pointed, it’s not just typical Internet chatter, it’s potentially big news. Elizabeth Edwards is extremely smart and a terrific writer … but it’s an incredible high-wire act for someone so prominent to attempt.

Sure, it’s pretty neat that there’s a potential First Lady reading and writing on blogs (on her own, in her own words). It’s proof that whereas all the talk about the downfall of the MSM a couple years back proved false, the blogs certainly have delivered on some degree of democraticization of political media.

But let us observe, as if it even needs pointing out, this development has not always proved beneficial for politicians and political campaigns. No matter what, that’s been the case here. As my former colleague Marc Ambinder points out at Hotline On Call, the controversy

stepped on his health care rollout and has been the dominant theme of his campaign for a week.

Make that two weeks. The Edwards campaign did itself enough damage by waiting too long to decide what to do with their problematic bloggers, and the drawn-out hiring, firing, rehiring and resigning just made it worse. Not to mention, Marcotte’s blog-and-tell for Salon can only delay the Edwards camp from getting back on message. Alas, Edwards will not be on the Sunday shows this week.

Elizabeth Edwards may be the most powerful blog expert advising her husband’s campaign, but assuming this reasoning is on target, she also may not be expert enough.

Note: Additional links and analysis provided by Not Paul Begala.

Update: NPB adds a worthwhile clarification in the comments:

[Marcotte an McEwan] were not vetted and the communications staff was not prepared for the broadside against them. As a former communications guy myself, I can’t tell you how much incomplete information pisses us off. … It’s a legit question that Democrats should be asking of one of their own potential nominees: Why weren’t you ready for a hit job from the right?

Update, Wednesday: Thank you, everyone who commented. Thank you especially, everyone who commented on something other than “good people” and “hit job.” I have approved several comments that are redundant at best, and I will certainly approve others (even on this very post). However, please read through the comments before adding your own, and please only do so if it’s a unique thought. Bonus points if it’s actually about this post, and not the aforementioned comment.

Hillary in Blogistan: On Blogads, The Netroots and Peter Daou

Published by William Beutler on January 25, 2007 in 50 State Strategy, Asymmetrical Media, Barack Obama, Blog Fights, Blogging Officials, Campaigns, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Netroots, Primary fights, Tough Crowd, Web video and White House '08. 32 Comments

Hillary Clinton did not wait long after her weekend presidential campaign announcement to step foot in the blogosphere: By Monday her technically fledgling but long-assumed campaign had taken major steps toward engaging web users, starting with her three-night series of half-hour webcasts, which concluded just last evening. Moreover, her camp had sought specifically to engage the dedicated online activists who call themselves the netroots, by promoting the webcasts through the industry standard Blogads service.

Her detractors among those online activists did not wait long, either. At MyDD, one of the leading anti-Hillary sites on the left, Matt Stoller criticized her team for purchasing ads on some conservative blogs:

Why do people like HRC, no matter how often it becomes clear that wingnuts hate us, seek approval from wingnuts?

Before long, another animadversion came from former Nevada [and current online] talk show host (and recent Stoller employee) Taylor Marsh, who was upset to find she had been left out:

It’s not like her team doesn’t know I exist. I find it a little annoying that Clinton’s team thinks that people like me don’t merit advertisement, simply because our numbers don’t reach the one-hundred thousand mark.

We’ll address the specifics of these charges, but in order to do so, first let’s try to describe the buy itself:

Hillary Clinton's first BlogadThe Clinton team can’t or won’t say what they spent on the buy, but on Monday, Blog P.I. went digging through the extensive a la carte ordering page at Blogads to find out where they had made their buys and make a reasonably educated guess about how much they had spent.

While I am quite sure I did not locate every ad on every blog, the initial buy was worth at least $17,026 across at least 45 blogs. The buy comprised political blogs almost exclusively, liberal blogs overwhelmingly, and primarily those with a national reach. Nearly every liberal blog above 50,000 impressions per week picked up a blogad, though a few did not (as we’ll see below) and at least a few regional and small-traffic blogs also were included. The campaign bought some Premium ads (which are guaranteed to be the top ads visible) on liberal sites but generally stuck with the Standard ads, and went with the bargain buys on each of the conservative blogs included. And how many conservative blogs was that? I counted just four: Hugh Hewitt, Power Line, Captain’s Quarters and Wizbang Politics (i.e. not the front page), each worth between 550,000 and 150,000 impressions per week for a total $1,150.

Yesterday Blog P.I. contacted Clinton’s principal blog adviser, Peter Daou, for elaboration. As he explained, the first round was for the webcasts, the second round (which began last night) was for inviting supporters and potential supporters to submit guest blog posts. According to Daou, future buys will focus on particular issues Sen. Clinton wants to highlight, and in states and regions where she will be traveling. The strategy is not fixed, and more to the point, neither are the number of sites. “A blog being excluded has absolutely no implication, except we’ll get there next time,” Daou said. “We’ll try to get as many bloggers as possible.” For anyone who remembers Daou’s last gig, the blog roundup published by Salon which still bears his name, Daou often went out of his way to reach down and pull obscure blogs up into the mix. To be sure, he’s not spending his own money, and cheap as Blogads can be, even Hillary Clinton does not have unlimited funds. But to the extent he can, it’s reasonable to expect that Daou will keep doing so.

·      ·      ·

And on Wednesday night, hours after the final webcast, the ad strategy did indeed shift: At the same time the buy expanded on liberal blogs, it disappeared from the conservative sites. To the Clinton team, it made sense to get attention from the right when the focus was on the webcast, but now that the ads are inviting people to submit guest posts to her site, inviting the “winguts” would indeed be a waste of time. Had they not made this distinction here, Stoller’s gripe surely would have been right.

But here’s the interesting thing: Blogads buys are one-week minimum commitments, though advertisers can change the specific ad as many times as they want — or remove it entirely. This is just what they’ve done: In order to stick to the plan, they have no choice but to pay Power Line and the rest not to run the ad, at least for a few more days (surely someone will compare this to farm subsidies, but no one has; one might say they’re just not into her).

For example, here is a screen shot taken last night, confirming two ads running on Power Line:

Power Line Blogad profile

But here is the Power Line sidebar as of last night:

Power Line blogad now disappeared

Not that the ads necessarily earned anyone’s approval: Dean Barnett, Hugh Hewitt’s co-blogger, took exception and* deemed it a misstep on Hillary’s part:

If Hillary is advertising to reach out to our core audience, she should save her money. I get your emails – I know none of you will be supporting Hillary in the Democratic primaries. … Presidential campaigns are often poorly and profligately run. Howard Dean, for instance, burned through a gazillion dollars getting absolutely no bang for his bucks and couldn’t tell you at the end of the day where all the money went.

Barnett surmised that Clinton’s “purchaser didn’t do his homework and decided that it would be a swell expenditure to run ads here and on Powerline” — but Barnett has been around the blogosphere (and was the Weekly Standard’s go-to guy on the leftosphere) long enough to know who Daou is, and to recognize that Daou would know exactly what to find at Power Line.

To this I will add just one more thing. On Tuesday, veteran Democratic operative and now Clinton spokesman Phil Singer told Hotline’s Blogometer:

We’re on some conservative sites because we’re not ceding any territory. We take nothing for granted.

To me this sounds a lot like the fighting spirit bloggers hold dearly — taking the fight to the other side’s camp. But that isn’t Sen. Clinton’s reputation with the netroots.

·      ·      ·

Now to Marsh’s complaint. Her site is currently worth 42,806 views per week, just below the point where buys were near-automatic. She and Daou disagree on whether or not the campaign attempted to buy on her site, but as I do not have sufficient evidence to make a judgment, I’ll stay out of that question. Rather, let’s look at the circumstances:

hillary blogad secondAs I dug through Blogads earlier this week, I found that liberal blogs with considerably more readers than Marsh were also not included in the initial ad buy: Juan Cole, Sadly, No!, BartCop, This Modern World, After Downing Street and Burnt Orange Report among them. They did not complain, but when the ad focus shifted on Thursday night, some of them were brought into the fold. Now they’re even on the low-traffic personal blog of Matthew Gross, who happens to be John Edwards’ blog adviser. And, yes, Taylor Marsh.

Other blogs that arguably reach the same demographic but were excluded include TV Newser, not to mention some of Clinton’s constituents, Curbed and Gothamist. The latter snub is somewhat notable considering she did buy on Gothamist’s DC affiliate, DCist. Heck, why not buy on Cute Overload? That site reaches a lot of people, and certainly fits with her warm and fuzzy approach. Same goes for Treehugger. It’s these lifestyle blogs that seem to lie beyond the campaign’s purview, while the campaign is “rotating,” as Daou put it, ads throughout Advertise Liberally Blogad network. [Update: Charles Kuffner has a point.]

Additionally, Some of Marsh’s complaints are confusing to me. She wrote, for example:

Single proprietor bloggers may not get the traffic of the gigantic community blogs, but we do a lion share of the work out here as well. … Taking me out of the equation for a moment, shouldn’t Clinton at least help out a few of the small female only blogs, reaching out to females everywhere? You’d think that would be important to her.

Yet Feministing and Pam’s House Blend are just the kind of female-only blogs Marsh describes, and they were included. In fact, Pam’s House Blend along with female-led Firedoglake were among the few sites to pick up Premium ad buys. Similar complaints likewise were off-target. At MyDD, Texas Nate hit Clinton’s camp for not buying on a few specific regional blogs. One was Bleeding Iowa which, so far as I can tell, does not support Blogads.

And to editorialize for a moment, there is something unseemly about complaining that an advertiser did not buy ads on one’s site. Daou and the Clinton team are under no obligation to buy ads on anybody’s site. Yes, Marsh is a member of the netroots in good standing — she has worked for the SEIU and MyDD to cover a labor dispute in Las Vegas — but the same is true of dozens of other bloggers whom Clinton missed on the first round. As Daou said to me, it’s impossible to buy on every site. And at least as of this morning, Marsh has made no acknowledgment of her inclusion in the next phase of the Clinton ad buy.

If it’s not exactly extortion, it does betray the kind of myopic egocentrism that establishment Democrats use — sometimes as an excuse, sometimes not — to keep the netroots at bay.

·      ·      ·

It was probably inevitable that there would be pushback when Hillary Clinton sought to engage the blogosphere. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the netroots’ legitimate policy disagreements with her have led to reflexive negative reactions to virtually anything she does.

Hillary Clinton's third and final first-week campaign webcastHere is an example, taken from MyDD this week: In a post titled “Playing the Electability Card,” Chris Bowers interprets a memo by Clinton pollster Mark Penn (as summarized by Newsday) — comparing his candidate favorably to her rivals — as playing the “electability card,” thereby denigrating the Democratic party as a whole and reinforcing Republican stereotypes. Problem is, there’s no Penn quote that clearly says this; the more plausible interpretation is that Hillary has more experience standing up to the kind of GOP attacks Bowers fears could be effective. Most perplexingly, the only Democrat whose “electability” is questioned in the Newsday article is Hillary — and in the second paragraph, no less. Although Penn’s claim that other campaigns are “stalled or falling” is dubious, there’s nothing scandalous about him putting Hillary Clinton in the best possible light. That is his job, after all.

Hillary Clinton’s longstanding position on the Iraq war puts her squarely at odds with the netroots, whose creation and cohesion owes more to the Iraq invasion and subsequent deterioration than any other issue. Short of a full apology, there’s nothing she can do. Even then, Edwards did that a long time ago, and Obama never supported it in the first place (though he never had to actually cast a vote on it).

Clinton’s online campaign must be one largely of damage control — managing expectations and placating bloggers who long ago made up their mind against her. Yet while Marsh and others (such as radio talker Ed Schultz) complain that she is not reaching out to progressives, through the webcast, blogads and forthcoming guest blogs, that’s exactly what she’s trying to do. Whether Clinton can soften the netroots opposition to her is an open question, but considering the uphill battle, it was probably wise to get started on it first thing.

Leftosphere of Influence

Published by William Beutler on January 3, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Barack Obama, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, MSM and White House '08. Closed

The top of Memeorandum at 7:35 a.m. this a.m. leads me to ask: Is John Amato bigger than Keith Olbermann?

Keith Olbermann, John Amato, Crooks and Liars, CNN, Memeorandum

I’m pretty sure the safe answer is “no,” but the truth is, I’m not so sure. And if Olbermann is worth anything like $4 million a year, let alone “north of” that, shouldn’t MSNBC at least send Amato a nice gift basket?

Another hit for Amato’s Crooks and Liars this week is eliciting an apology from CNN for this:

CNN, Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden

The Chicago Tribune hat tips Raw Story, but again, Amato got there first.

I think there are a few lessons to be learned here. For one, conservatives should observe this reminder that the MSM are capable of playing the same dumb jokes on Democrats as sometimes happens to Republicans. Meanwhile, the left as well might consider that when Fox News mislabeled then-Rep. Mark Foley as a Democrat, chances are it was just a mistake.

·      ·      ·

And while we’re on the subject of “Barack Hussein Obama,” a phrase that has peaked but isn’t going away, I wonder if anybody realizes that the first person to use the full construction last year was not GOP consultant Ed Rogers, but actually… Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet. She is nobody’s conservative, but certain corners of the rightosphere were already way ahead of Rogers.

Another nickname affixed to him these days is “Obambi,” referencing his lack of political experience. In recent weeks, both Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and John Fund of the Wall Street Journal have both referenced the term, crediting it only to a “Chicago columnist.” Which Chicago columnist? How hard is it to properly credit the person responsible?

The papers won’t say. But I will: It’s Michael Sneed, also of the Chicago Sun-Times.

So why does Sweet escape blame for the xenophobic “nickname” while Sneed gets no credit for the innocent one?

In Chicago, the answer might be: People like Sweet a lot more than Sneed (I am not a Chicagoan, but I have consulted with one).

Inside the Beltway, there are a few possibilities, but they aren’t much different. In the case of DC bureau chief Sweet, I doubt they really care/remember. In the case of Chicago-based Sneed, I doubt they really remember/care.

The Time Machine

Published by William Beutler on December 17, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Earned Media, Entertainment, Google, Journalism History, MSM, Metapost, Photoshop, Seriously and Social Networking. 48 Comments

Are we this good or is Time just that predictable? On October 9, the day Google announced its acquisition of YouTube, we wrote:

[I]t’s only been about 10 months since Time Magazine declined to choose an individual for its much-devalued Person of the Year award, so it only stands to reason they’re back in the hunt. It’s also been nearly a decade since Time named someone (or thing) from the tech industry — Jeff Bezos in 1999 — and more than 20 years since they named the PC its “Machine of the Year.” Also, it’s not an election year, so it won’t be the winner of the presidential election. It’s time for another gimmick!

At left, our Photoshopped prediction from two months ago. At right, Time Warner’s actual latest cover, announced this weekend:

Time POY Prediction: You       Time POY Reality: You

Although Blog P.I. doesn’t make prognostications a regular part of what we do, we have made a few good calls — Not Paul Begala told you here first that Jon Tester wasn’t getting an Appropriations seat, and again relying upon this year’s breakout phenomenon, we did start talking about the “YouTube election” well ahead of most.

But if we can’t even pick a fantasy football team that makes the playoffs, we’re not going to stake our rep on predicting the future. So the answer is yes, they really are that predictable.

Oppo Knocks?

Published by William Beutler on December 14, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Blog Consultants, Blog Fights, Campaigns, Democrats, George Allen, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Midterms '06, Oppo Research and Virginia Politics. 9 Comments

Anybody who watched the Virginia Senate race this year knows that Senator-elect Jim Webb ran a savvy Internet campaign. He hired bloggers, leveraged YouTube, played bloggers and the press off each other and off soon-to-be former Sen. George Allen.

But we may just now be learning how savvy his campaign really was: Last evening, conservative Virginia blogger Shaun Kenney posted this unsourced but possibly legitimate report:

If you are a Virginia blogger, chances are that the Webb campaign has an opposition research book on you. Bloggers that made the cut include Chad Dotson, Jim Hoeft, Ben Tribbett, Waldo Jaquith, Josh Chernila, Lowell Feld, Jim Riley, J.C. Wilmore, Jon Henke, and a host of others. These are not your typical background checks either… a significant amount of money was spent crafting the kind of opposition research one would typically find on a candidate running for public office. It seems as if the Webb campaign made a strategic decision to unleash this opposition research if something damaging came out against their candidate, simply to personally slander the blogger making the claim.

Slander might not be the right word here; assuming the dirt was true, “smear” would probably cover it just fine. Many of Kenney’s commenters wanted proof. None has surfaced as yet, but they did get the next best thing in an apparent confirmation from liberal Virginia blogger Ben Tribbett, who is Not Larry Sabato:

What I have been told by some reliable sources is that Shaun’s report is very close to reality. However, I am hearing that the list of bloggers researched is “smaller” than Shaun’s list, while the amount of information compiled on those bloggers chosen is “very large” … The staff involved can not keep their story straight. One person pointed out they had a report done on them, and we should feel complimented, and another denied any such thing existed. I’m hearing “yes” on J.C. Wilmore, Jon Henke, myself and Lowell Feld, and working on confirmation on others. If this list stays slanted to the Democrats, we can assume these reports were generated for potential retribution instead of proactive research.

That bloggers in opposing political camps are giving credence to the story is what makes it credible, and the Webb campaign targeting bloggers in opposing political camps is what makes it interesting. (There is another reason why this story is notable, and we’ll get to it shortly.) Of course, let me add that right now this story remains purely a rumor. Repeat: There is no actual evidence to support these claims, only the integrity of the bloggers involved. End disclaimer.

It might come as a minor revelation that political campaigns would look into the backgrounds of bloggers who oppose them, but as long as the oppo research stays on safe legal ground, there’s nothing particularly controversial here. But what of the supposed research into Webb’s allies — and employees? Feld heads up Virginia’s biggest liberal blog, Raising Kaine, and was employed by Webb as netroots coordinator. Why on Earth would he want to risk alienating his chief ally in the blogosphere?

Easy: To protect himself. Everybody who follows politics at least casually knows about oppo research, but the flip-side of that seamy-but-crucial campaign activity is what’s called self-research.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that the Webb campaign would do this, if they did this. Recent history gives us good reason to assume that politicians are wary of bloggers, certainly more so than traditional volunteers (who do not make a point of expressing their opinions in public).

Recall not just the blackface controversy in this year’s CT SEN race — after which Ned Lamont unconvincingly blurted to reporters: “I don’t know anything about the blogs” — but also the infamous “screw them” moment in 2004, where then-rising blog star Markos Moulitsas callously dismissed the deaths of American contractors in Iraq.

Some Virginia bloggers assume this research might have been used for character assassination, but what’s more likely is the Dem-side research was done to decide whether to hire Feld in the first place, and whether to associate with other bloggers. Do we really expect that a Senate campaign wouldn’t do this kind of due diligence?

There is certainly some political risk in doing so; bloggers often don’t like being part of “poltics as usual,” and that’s certainly what this is. If Webb really was cagey enough to research not just his opponent’s allied bloggers but his own as well, many think that would put him over the line from “shrewd” to “paranoid.” Indeed, it would be highly cynical of Webb to imagine that Feld might turn around and start attacking him before the race concluded. But it’s less cynical to think that someone not on his payroll — Tribbett, Jaquith, Wilmore — might do so. In politics, cynicism pays. And where it comes to the blogosphere, right now every campaign is making it up as they go along.

Wilmore, who writes The Richmond Democrat, does not think that this is necessarily Webb’s doing:

I don’t think this story is about Jim Webb. I think it’s about Jessica Vanden Berg, and it seems to me that this is really two stories.

The first story is that the Webb campaign did oppo research on Republican opposition bloggers. To me this only makes sense. Members of Allen’s “A-Team” and “B-Team” had certainly injected themselves into the political process and were fair game. For my part, I know for a fact that I was oppo’d by the Allen campaign. I have no complaints on that score …

The second story is where the controversial part of this incident lies. Did Jessica Vanden Berg authorize opposition research on prominent Democratic bloggers who were allied to (and in some cases employed by) the Webb campaign? Were research dossiers or “books” compiled on some of Webb’s key supporters? It’s an important question. It implies that we were considered threats to the Webb campaign, which is odd, because most of us were involved, to some degree or another, in getting the Webb campaign off the ground. …

No, it seems unlikely to me that we were perceived as a threat to Jim Webb. But were we a threat to Jessica Vanden Berg? Were we were oppo’d for that reason? Did Vanden Berg — feeling threatened by the dialogue occurring on our blogs — authorize oppo research on us to shore up her own position within the campaign?

He followed up, e-mailing Vanden Berg for confirmation or denial. And a denial he got:

We don’t have an opposition research on you. We don’t have any opposition research books on any people who blog.

And that’s what also makes this story interesting. This denial rules out more than just oppo on Jaquith, Wilmore, Feld, Tribbett and other Webb supporters, but Allen’s A-Team members including Dotson, Riley and others. The Webb camp didn’t do any research on anyone who blogged the campaign? Not even on Henke — a paid adviser to the Allen campaign?

This answer is either untenable or too revealing. Maybe they weren’t so savvy after all — perhaps we’re only finding out that they were lucky.

In any case, this one started in the blogosphere, but if these questions are to be resolved, the MSM just might have to step in.

P.S. Henke has published his own oppo file, to the best that he can recall:

When I was about 5 years old, I stole a quarter from a girl named Jennifer Weidler. It was a Bicentennial quarter, which I thought it was very cool-looking. I’ve always regretted that.

P.P.S. It’s also worth noting that Tribbett is no fan of Vanden Berg’s, though it may be immaterial to the facts in this case.

P.P.P.S. Also worth noting, a contributor to Raising Kaine, not Feld, added today:

My sources at the campaign are saying this simply isn’t true.

He probably means transition team, as the campaign has concluded. That said, it would be nice to know how many sources each blogger is citing, and which of them actually worked with Vanden Berg.

Sometimes They Come Back: Another Look At New York Magazine and Barack Obama

Published by William Beutler on December 5, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Barack Obama, Daily Kos, MSM, Metapost and Technorati. 1 Comment

What do Glenn Reynolds, Chris Bowers, Greg Tinti, Richard Bennett, Andrew Sullivan and I all have in common? As Conn Carroll has pointed out, in the past 24 hours, we’ve all linked to an early October New York article as if it was just out. (Though, to be fair, I’m the only one who explicitly said it was the latest edition.)

So what happened here? Let’s turn to Technorati.

The common link in all of our posts was to the fifth page of the article, and Sullivan was clearly first. As my post from yesterday should indicate, I found it on his site. I assume the others did as well, a possible exception being Bowers (being the lone netrooter in the group, and the only one not to mention Obama’s swipe at Daily Kos). How did Sullivan find it? Most likely from one of his ubiquitous e-mail tipsters.

And just to be sure, the story is indeed from October. It’s dated the 2nd of that month, and the last sentence of the article’s first page notes that Obama’s new book “will be hitting bookstores in mid-October.”

Searching for links to the article’s first page at Technorati, it appears the article was largely overlooked. The only well-known site to link at the time was Bloggingheads. That week’s ‘heads, Eric Alterman and Mickey Kaus, barely mentioned it, and none of them singled out the Kos reference.

So why did it escape unmentioned until now? That I cannot answer. This episode might put the lie to the notion that political bloggers will turn up every last relevant tidbit from the news. Or at least that they’ll do so immediately — eventually, it did make the rounds. And, of course, it’s probably of interest only to those of us who spend much of our time in the political blogosphere to begin with. Compare: a few days after the original Lee Bandy report, Joe Biden’s latest “Trent Lott” moment is generating bipartisan outrage — albeit limited, so far.

Back to New York and Obama, credit goes to Central Sanity, who linked the story yesterday for different reasons, and led with:

This article from New York Magazine is apparently about two months old, but it’s still a worthwhile look into the mind of the U.S. Senator from Illinois.

It may be a blogosphere cliché, but it’s still good advice — read the whole thing.

What’s In The Technorati Top 100?

Published by William Beutler on November 21, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Blogs vs. MSM, Charts and Graphs, Daily Kos, Entertainment, Gawker Media, Instapundit, Tech Blogosphere and Technorati. 6 Comments

Earlier in the month Technorati founder/CEO David Sifry published the latest of his “State of the Blogosphere” reports. This one doesn’t break a lot of new ground — Farsi edges out Dutch as the 10th most-used language! — but it does look as if the Technorati team has taken previous criticisms into consideration. Numerous bloggers derided the August report as inaccurate (or worse) by counting dead blogs and spam blogs among the exponentially rising number of blogs in the known universe. In this installment

The State of the Blogosphere continues to be strong.

though the curve representing new blog creation finally begins to flatten:

Technorati blog creation growth curve flattens

Sifry says this “may be” the result of improved spam-fighting measures: “Spam-, splog- and sping-fighting efforts at Technorati are paying dividends in terms of the reduction of garbage in our indexes, even if it does seem to impact overall growth rates.”

He also buries the lede by skipping too quickly past this newsworthy finding:

About 55% of all blogs are active, which means that they have been updated at least once in the last 3 months.

As usual the report is not lacking for beautiful charts (some of which I have appropriated for this post) but a chart showing the number of active blogs is not among them. Contrary to the bold-faced boast

Currently Tracking More than 57 Million Blogs and Counting.

there are not actually some 60 million active blogs out there. The number is closer to 33 million, which still sounds impressive even if it too is probably a little inflated, and most importantly, has the virtue of being a useful number.

In the (now mysteriously unavailable) comments on the post, one of the early respondents asked that a future report show what the top blogs are actually writing about, perhaps based on the search engine’s top 50 tags. Anyone can check out the most-used Technorati tags for themselves, but I thought it might be interesting to go down the list and figure out what genres or categories define the Top 100 and count them up.

As you can imagine, that’s quite a list. So here’s the color key for the chart and a sample:


At right you’ll find the Top 10 sites of the 100, current to November 2006. Below, a color-coded key that tells you what each pastel means.


  Technology & Business 30
  Politics & News 21
  Niche/Other 18
  Foreign Language 17
  Entertainment/Gossip 12
  Duplicate 2

 

  
  Technorati Top 10
  Engadget
  Boing Boing
  FC2 Blog
  Gizmodo
  Xujinglei
  The Huffington Post
  Techcrunch
  Daily Kos
  PostSecret
  Lifehacker

Ready for the full list of 100? After the jump:

Continue reading ‘What’s In The Technorati Top 100?’

Makin’ Copies

Published by William Beutler on November 19, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Second Life and Wikipedia. 1 Comment

At Freedom to Tinker, Ed Felten gives a good overview of the threat the CopyBot application poses to the economy of Second Life. If you’re not familiar with the Second Life metaverse, but you do recall the “World of Warcraft”-themed season premiere of “South Park” this fall, then the situation Felten describes might ring a bell:

If you’re not familiar with virtual worlds, you might think the word “economy” is a stretch. But really it’s not. SecondLife has about 1.5 million residents. Residents are given a sophisticated toolset they can use to design complex objects, specifying the objects’ shape, appearance, and behavior. Objects can be sold for a currency called Linden Dollars. Linden Dollars are real money — they can be traded for U.S. dollars on currency exchange markets. Quite a few people make their living in SecondLife, running businesses that make Linden-Dollar profits, which are then cashed in for U.S. dollars. Most days, the SecondLife economy sees transactions worth a total of between $500,000 and $1,000,000 (real U.S. dollars). This is clearly a real economy.

To understand the possible impact of CopyBot, imagine such a thing existed in real life. Point this CopyGadget at any real-world object, push a button, and you get a perfect copy of that object. Want a new Lambourghini sportscar? Just find one in a parking lot and copy it. Like the lime sorbet at the local ice cream parlor? Buy a cup, take it home, and fill your freezer with copies. When you get down to the last cup in the freezer, just copy it again. You get the idea.

I’ve been getting to know Second Life for a few weeks now, and even though political uses of the virtual world are not directly susceptible to this kind of chicanery, it certainly poses an indirect threat. Sure, Second Life is big now — but so were Napster and Friendster.

If there is nothing else to be learned here, do not name your company anything ending in “-ster.” If there is something else to be learned from this, it’s that Second Life creator Linden Labs must settle this quickly and definitively. According to New World Notes, the actual damage so far is very limited, but that’s no reason to sigh with relief. As that business with John Seigenthaler goes to show, even a minor problem can be magnified many times in the media’s perception — especially if you’re doing something new and unproven, like a user-written encyclopedia or user-built virtual world.

P.S. Because I can never resist using an available screen grab, here’s the Second Life version of yours truly chilling out on the seaside balcony of a Japanese-themed luxury home:

William Beutler in Second Life

Yes, I am sitting fully-clothed in an operational hot tub. Considering that I’m also trespassing, that’s probably for the better.

I Am Jack’s YouTube Account

Published by William Beutler on November 14, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Blog Consultants, Blogging Officials, Campaigns, Candidate Bloggers, Earned Media, Facebook, Republicans and Social Networking. 3 Comments

Where there is new media — or a new comedy show in the mass media — Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) is sure to be found. Now that Kingston is seeking the House GOP conference chairmanship, you can find him making his pitch on YouTube:

He’s in a crowded field, facing fellow Southerners Adam Putnam and Marsha Blackburn plus Southern Californian Dan Lungren, and because these things are won and lost behind closed doors (perhaps even doors slightly ajar, if one speaks softly enough) this online whistle-stop is little more than a stunt.

But so far it’s earned cautious praise from Robert Bluey at Human Events and gleeful derision from Alex Pareene at Wonkette — in other words, it’s working like a charm.

And how long has the congressman been a member of YouTube?

Jack Kingston's YouTube Account

Six months is none too shabby — that’s almost half the billion-dollar startup’s young life. (I’ve never met Kingston aide David All, but he must be worth the $6,500 Kingston let Mike Bouchard pay him in September.) Then again, as Senator-elect James Webb’s Facebook wrangler discovered last month, when it comes to social networking, politicians have to be warier of who links to them than most:

Racist Comment On Jack Kingston's YouTube Account

Whoops! Borat might be able to get away with saying things like that, but for Rep. Kingston, it may be time to change those account settings.

P.S. Here’s Abbi Tatton from CNN’s “Situation Room” yesterday afternoon, on the YouTube video:

It went to all his Republican colleagues. His office said it’s easier to get people’s attention with a video than a piece of paper.

So apparently it’s not just for the blogger crowd. It’s difficult to see why this would have any noticeable effect on his fellow MoCs — to say nothing of his promises to seek out advice from Hollywood conservatives like Ben Stein and David Horowitz — although one thing it certainly does is put the same visual media in front of both members and bloggers. Whatever problems the message has, it must be worth something to try putting the two camps on the same (web) page.

Nice Work If You Can Get It: A Closer Look at Campaign Blogger Remunerations

Published by William Beutler on November 5, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Blog Consultants, Blogging Officials, Campaigns, Candidate Bloggers, Democrats, Elections, George Allen, John McCain, Lamont v. Lieberman, Midterms '06, National Politics, Republicans and White House '08. 17 Comments

[Note: This post has been updated; for details, see the end of this post. Thanks to the campaign bloggers who wrote in with updates and corrections.]

Last week Danny Glover, my former colleague at the National Journal Group, went through the FEC reports of candidates for federal office to report just how much their campaigns were paying the bloggers and new media coordinators in their employ.

It was a fascinating and useful article, though it could have used a sidebar or two breaking out the details. Who is the best-paid campaign blogger? Which campaign spent the most? What would these bloggers make if prorated to a yearly salary?

So with the help of Olly Ruff, my capable and mathematically-inclined co-blogger, we’ve done just that. And then some. Before we get started, some disclaimers are in order:

By “prorated salary,” we mean that monthly (approximate) salaries have been prorated to annual salaries; these figures are not meant to indicate the blogger actually made or will make this amount. Jon Henke of QandO, for example, has only been with the Allen campaign for a few months. Likewise, “lump sumps” refer to larger payments made at irregular times. They could be one-off or recurring. These figures are not meant to indicate an annual rate. Unless otherwise noted, numbers are from 2006.

It is also worth remembering that some of these advisers are bloggers, some are more senior advisers, and some are both. Additionally, some advisers may keep other jobs — Daou still does The Daou Report for Salon, but no longer writes commentary there; David All is merely on loan from a similar position with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA).

Like a poll, this is a snapshot and only a snapshot. We didn’t have the time or resources to go back and look at how long each blogger had actually worked for a given candidate, so the prorated numbers should be taken with a dash of Morton’s. All numbers come from Glover’s piece, and if we haven’t made it clear already, some are approximate.

All right, that should do. Here’s how we’ve broken it down:

After the charts, we’ll share a few notes and observations. Just as you can click on the links above to take you to a specific chart, you can also click here to read those. Let’s go:

    a. By candidate, prorated salary paid (Democrats)

    Candidate Campaign Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure
    Sen. Hillary Clinton NY SEN incumbent Jesse Berney; Peter Daou1 $15,600; $60,000
    (by way of
    FOH/HILLPAC)
    Sen. Debbie Stabenow MI SEN incumbent Laura Packard,
    Aaron Hofman    		 $44,400; $26,400
    Rep. Jan Schakowsky IL 09 incumbent Alex Armour $38,400
    Treas. Bob Casey PA SEN Rick Santorum Jon Jones $33,600
    State Sen. Jon Tester MT SEN Conrad Burns Andrew Tweeten $31,200
    Sen. Robert Menendez NJ SEN incumbent Scott Shields $34,860 (up from
    starting $30,744)
    Rep. Ted Strickland OH GOV open Jesse Taylor $24,600
    Atty Larry Grant ID 01 open Julie Fanselow $15,600
    Atty Bill Winter CO 06 Tom Tancredo Aaron Silverstein $10,200

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    b. By candidate, prorated salary paid (Republicans)

    Candidate Campaign Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure
    Sen. Rick Santorum PA SEN incumbent Mindy Finn; Luke Bernstein $52,800; $51,600
    Rep. Mark Kennedy MN SEN open Michael Brodkorb $55,200
    Sen. George Allen VA SEN incumbent Jon Henke2 $27,600
    Sen. Bill Frist WH’08 (prospective) Stephen Smith $22,400 (by way of VOLPAC)

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    c. By candidate, prorated salary paid (combined)

    Candidate Campaign Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure
    Sen. Rick Santorum
    		 PA SEN incumbent Mindy Finn; Luke Bernstein $52,800; $51,600
    Sen. Hillary Clinton NY SEN incumbent Jesse Berney; Peter Daou $15,600; $60,000
    (by way of
    FOH/HILLPAC)
    Sen. Debbie Stabenow MI SEN incumbent Laura Packard,
    Aaron Hofman    		 $44,400; $26,400
    Rep. Mark Kennedy MN SEN open Michael Brodkorb $55,200
    Rep. Jan Schakowsky IL 09 incumbent Alex Armour $38,400
    Sen. Robert Menendez NJ SEN incumbent Scott Shields $34,860 (up from
    starting $30,744)
    Treas. Bob Casey PA SEN Rick Santorum Jon Jones $33,600
    State Sen. Jon Tester MT SEN Conrad Burns Andrew Tweeten $31,200
    Sen. George Allen VA SEN incumbent Jon Henke $27,600
    Rep. Ted Strickland OH GOV open Jesse Taylor $24,600
    Sen. Bill Frist WH’08 prospective Stephen Smith $22,400 (by way of VOLPAC)
    Atty Larry Grant ID 01 open Julie Fanselow $15,600
    Atty Bill Winter CO 06 Tom Tancredo Aaron Silverstein $10,200

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    d. By candidate, lump sum (Democrats)

    Candidate Campaign Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure
    Rep. Sherrod Brown OH SEN Mike DeWine Jerome Armstrong;
    Tim Tagaris    		 $100,000 (2005-2006);
    $17,000 (2005)
    Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb VA SEN George Allen Abraham (Josh) Chernila;
    Lowell Feld     		$7,700; $3,600
    Sen. Jon Corzine NJ GOV ‘05 won Jerome Armstrong;
    Matt Stoller     		$39,000; $31,000
    Ex-Gov. Mark Warner WH’08 withdrawn Jerome Armstrong $65,000
    Sen. Joe Lieberman CT SEN incumbent Dan Gerstein $21,000 (Sept 2006)
    Cable exec Ned Lamont CT SEN Joe Lieberman Tim Tagaris $21,000 (Jul-Sept 2006)

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    e. By candidate, lump sum (Republicans)

    Candidate Campaign Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure
    Sen. John McCain WH’08 prospective Patrick Hynes $31,500
    Sheriff Mike Bouchard MI SEN
    Debbie Stabenow    		 David All $6,468 (Sept 2006)

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    f. By candidate, lump sum (combined)

    Candidate Campaign Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure
    Rep. Sherrod Brown OH SEN Mike DeWine Jerome Armstrong;
    Tim Tagaris    		 $100,000 (2005-2006);
    $17,000 (2005)
    Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb VA SEN George Allen Abraham (Josh) Chernila;
    Lowell Feld     		$77,00; $3,600
    Sen. Jon Corzine NJ GOV ‘05 won Jerome Armstrong;
    Matt Stoller     		$39,000; $31,000
    Ex-Gov. Mark Warner WH’08 withdrawn Jerome Armstrong $65,000
    Sen. John McCain WH’08 prospective Patrick Hynes $31,500
    Sen. Joe Lieberman CT SEN incumbent Dan Gerstein $21,000 (Sept 2006)
    Cable exec Ned Lamont CT SEN Joe Lieberman Tim Tagaris $21,000 (Jul-Sept 2006)
    Sheriff Mike Bouchard MI SEN
    Debbie Stabenow    		 David All $6,468 (Sept 2006)

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    g. By blogger/adviser, prorated salary (Democrats)

    Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure Candidate Campaign
    Peter Daou $60,000
    (by way of
    FOH/HILLPAC)    		 Sen. Hillary Clinton NY SEN incumbent
    Laura Packard $44,400 Sen. Debbie Stabenow MI SEN incumbent
    Alex Armour $38,400 Rep. Jan Schakowsky IL 09 incumbent
    Scott Shields $34,860 (up from starting
    $30,744)    		 Sen. Robert Menendez incumbent
    Jon Jones $33,600 Treas. Bob Casey PA SEN Rick Santorum
    Andrew Tweeten $31,200 State Sen. Jon Tester MT SEN Conrad Burns
    Aaron Hofman $26,400 Sen. Debbie Stabenow MI SEN incumbent
    Jesse Taylor $24,600 Rep. Ted Strickland OH GOV open
    Jesse Berney $15,600 (by way of HILLPAC) Sen. Hillary Clinton NY SEN incumbent
    Julie Fanselow $15,600 Atty Larry Grant ID 01 open
    Aaron Silverstein $10,200 Atty Bill Winter CO 06 Tom Tancredo

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    h. By blogger/adviser, prorated salary (Republicans)

    Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure Candidate Campaign
    Michael Brodkorb $55,200 Rep. Mark Kennedy MN SEN open
    Mindy Finn $52,800 Sen. Rick Santorum PA SEN incumbent
    Luke Bernstein $51,600 Sen. Rick Santorum PA SEN incumbent
    Jon Henke $27,600 Sen. George Allen VA SEN incumbent
    Stephen Smith $22,400 (by way of VOLPAC) Sen. Bill Frist WH’08 prospective

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    i. By blogger/adviser, prorated salary (combined)

    Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure Candidate Campaign
    Peter Daou $60,000
    (by way of
    FOH/HILLPAC)    		 Sen. Hillary Clinton NY SEN incumbent
    Michael Brodkorb $55,200 Rep. Mark Kennedy MN SEN open
    Mindy Finn $52,800 Sen. Rick Santorum PA SEN incumbent
    Luke Bernstein $51,600 Sen. Rick Santorum PA SEN incumbent
    Laura Packard $44,400 Sen. Debbie Stabenow MI SEN incumbent
    Alex Armour $38,400 Rep. Jan Schakowsky IL 09 incumbent
    Jon Jones $33,600 Treas. Bob Casey PA SEN Rick Santorum
    Andrew Tweeten $31,200 State Sen. Jon Tester MT SEN Conrad Burns
    Aaron Hofman $26,400 Sen. Debbie Stabenow MI SEN incumbent
    Scott Shields $34,860 (up from starting
    $30,744)    		 Sen. Robert Menendez NJ SEN incumbent
    Jon Henke $27,600 Sen. George Allen VA SEN incumbent
    Jesse Taylor $24,600 Rep. Ted Strickland OH GOV (open)
    Stephen Smith $22,400 (by way of VOLPAC) Sen. Bill Frist WH’08 prospective
    Jesse Berney $15,600 (by way of HILLPAC) Sen. Hillary Clinton NY SEN incumbent
    Julie Fanselow $15,600 Atty Larry Grant ID 01 open
    Aaron Silverstein $10,200 Atty Bill Winter CO 06 Tom Tancredo

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    j. By blogger/adviser, lump sum (Democrats)

    Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure Candidate Campaign
    Jerome Armstrong $204,000 Jon Corzine;
    Sherrod Brown;
    Mark Warner    		 NJ GOV ‘05 (won);
    OH SEN Mike DeWine;
    WH’08 (withdrawn)
    Abraham (Josh) Chernila $7,700 James Webb VA SEN George Allen
    Tim Tagaris $38,000 (2005-2006) Sherrod Brown;
    Ned Lamont    		 OH SEN Mike DeWine;
    CT SEN Joe Lieberman
    Matt Stoller $31,000 Jon Corzine NJ GOV ‘05 open
    Dan Gerstein $21,000 (Sept 2006) Sen. Joe Lieberman CT SEN incumbent
    Lowell Feld $3,600 James Webb VA SEN George Allen

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    k. By blogger/adviser, lump sum (Republicans)

    Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure Candidate Campaign
    Patrick Hynes $31,500 Sen. John McCain WH’08 prospective
    David All $6,468 (Sept 2006) Mike Bouchard MI SEN
    Debbie Stabenow

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    l. By blogger/adviser, lump sum (combined)

    Blogger/Adviser Payment/Expenditure Candidate Campaign
    Jerome Armstrong $204,000 Sen. Jon Corzine;
    Rep. Sherrod Brown;
    Ex-Gov. Mark Warner    		 NJ GOV ‘05 won;
    OH SEN Mike DeWine;
    WH’08 withdrawn
    Abraham (Josh) Chernila $7,700 Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb VA SEN George Allen
    Tim Tagaris $38,000 (2005-2006) Rep. Sherrod Brown; Cable exec Ned Lamont OH SEN Mike DeWine; CT SEN Joe Lieberman
    Patrick Hynes $31,500 Sen. John McCain WH’08 prospective
    Matt Stoller $31,000 Sen. Jon Corzine (won) NJ GOV ‘05 open
    Dan Gerstein $21,000 (Sept 2006) Sen. Joe Lieberman CT SEN incumbent
    David All $6,468 (Sept 2006) Sheriff Mike Bouchard MI SEN
    Debbie Stabenow
    Lowell Feld $3,600 Ex-Navy Sec. James Webb VA SEN George Allen

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And now, as promised, some additional thoughts:

  • So, which blogs are they running, anyway? Here’s the list of blogs sponsored by the aforementioned campaigns.
  • Which candidates have hired new media consultants but do not have blogs? They are none other than McCain and Clinton, whose 2008 presidential campaigns have yet to get underway (assuming they both run, which in the latter case is no certainty). Among the campaigns concluded, the only one still active is Mark Warner’s Forward Together Blog; currently it’s giving updates on Warner’s travels campaigning for Jim Webb.
  • Corzine Connection and Sherrod Brown’s Grow Ohio, however, are more than defunct — not only are they no longer online, they cannot be found at the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. nor in Google’s cache.

    Additionally, Corzine was elected to New Jersey’s governorship a year ago, put away the blog with his campaign site then, and for what it’s worth, has battled back from low approval ratings without a presence in the blogosphere. Yet Brown shut down his site not long after announcing for Senate; he understandably shied away from the ’sphere, as it seemed to cause him nothing but headaches.

  • Clearly, and none too surprisingly, Democratic candidates are hiring more bloggers and new media advisers than Republicans. (They are also more enthusiastic about paying in lump sums.) It seems to me that if your party is on the outs, you’re more likely to embrace new methods of reaching people than if you’re already in power and relatively complacent. The exception is if you’re an outsider in your own party (read: McCain), or behind in your own race. Santorum has been spending like there’s no tomorrow (about $11,000/month on bloggers alone) — and in his case, there probably isn’t.

    The only question is why more Republicans didn’t start blogs this time. Well, Allen didn’t until he had no choice, and more than a few vulnerable Republicans this time didn’t find themselves in real trouble until late (Chris Shays), can’t really face up to the scrutiny (Don Sherwood) or both (Curt Weldon).

    Wait for 2008.

  • And it isn’t just Santorum who’s putting down a lot of money. Republicans may have hired fewer bloggers than have Democrats, but on the whole they’re paying them more. This may have something to do with fundraising, and especially the fact that all bloggers listed here are incumbents — even though Rep. Kennedy is running for the Senate, he of course has been in Washington for some time already. But if you’re going to be a Democrat heading off to work for a member of your party, it’s highly advisable that you write for MyDD first.
  • There is sure to be a fallow period after the election; between Nov. 8 and sometime next year, chances are there will be very few candidates employing bloggers — because the only “candidates” will be those mulling a run at the White House.

    But a year from now, the numbers will surely return to this level, and in 2008 it’s highly probable many more bloggers and new media this-or-thats will be working for various incumbents and challengers. Blogging may be well-entrenched in the mediasphere, but politicians have been slower in recognizing their utility.

  • And because we are never entirely above cheap shots here at Blog P.I. there is one additional moral to be divined from these numbers: Astrology works.

What do you think? Any angles we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.

P.S. I think we knew this would happen:

    1. The most significant update concerns Peter Daou. As Danny Glover corrects at Beltway Blogroll today, Daou draws a $3,750 monthly check from Friends of Hillary in addition to $1,250 from HILLPAC. This moves Hillary Clinton into first place as among Democrats in spending (second overall only to Santorum), and Daou to number one among consultants in terms of compensation.

    Another note: This is in addition to Daou’s consulting for other clients including Media Matters and the AARP, but since we’re just talking about electoral campaigns, we’ll leave them aside. As noted above, these numbers are not meant to be taken as the individual’s total salary.

    2. I’ve added a note to Henke’s name (which Olly had put in but I took out) noting that this number here is almost certainly off. Of course, we might’ve added this to virtually all of the numbers, but Henke being the last-hired among the goup here, there was even less information to go on. Just FYI.

    3. I also goofed and listed SantorumBlog as the official campaign blog. The actual official blog has now replaced it in the list above.

More to come as necessary.