In the days after Sen. George Allen’s YouTube-preserved “macaca” moment, my erstwhile colleague Danny Glover recommended on his own blog that Allen shore up his online campaign, post-haste:
Engage like-minded bloggers to get them behind your campaign. Let them bash the Post for you. Hold conference calls with them. Grant interviews to bloggers. Write entries for their sites and respond to readers when you do. Hire a blog expert to connect with online activists. Those are the kinds of things smart candidates already are doing.
Consider the advice taken. On Friday morning, Richmond-based blogger and former radio personality Jon Henke announced he would be joining Allen’s re-election campaign as a Netroots coordinator:
Obviously, this will change my focus quite a bit, but I will continue to blog at QandO whenever possible, generally on the issues and stories in this very important Virginia Senate race.
As a right-libertarian, Henke generally supports Republicans, but he can’t be pegged an apologist, and has on occasion sided with liberal bloggers over conservatives. I haven’t met Henke in person, but in correspondence going back more than a year, he’s struck me as serious and thoughtful. He’s a good get for them.
As often is the case with newly-created positions related to the blogosphere, even Henke isn’t completely sure how he’ll spend his working hours, but his mission includes “helping to close the strategic blogosphere gap.” Says Henke, via e-mail:
The leftosphere is very good at getting their campaign message to bloggers, getting bloggers to talk about the campaigns and spreading the muck through back channels. The Allen campaign wants to establish some outreach to supportive bloggers and to make sure our side of heard when the Leftosphere is smearing us.
The hire is too late to be damage control, but it should be insurance against future controversies. Allen isn’t the only candidate hurt this year because their media consultants are unsuited to the strange new landscape of user-generated media. (How many have even heard the term “Web 2.0″?) The Allen camp’s multiple revisions of what “macaca” meant is a good example. The breakthrough, if there was one, came from Chad Dotson, a conservative blogger unafilliated with but sympathetic to the campaign. Henke too had Allen’s back, although either one could have ignored the situation. Now the Allen camp has a go-to guy in Henke, and that’s important.
Henke’s widely-read blog is certainly an asset, but that too raises new questions: Henke says he is not proscribed from writing about anything in particular, but he’s also in the odd position of having two co-equal bloggers at QandO. While Dale Franks and Bruce McQuain are supportive of his decision, the possibility exists that they will disagree about some campaign-related issue yet to arise. Henke tells me: “I will not — can not — tell them what to write and what not to write.”
The flip side is that it recalls the issue of whether Democrats Mark Warner and Sherrod Brown hiring Jerome Armstrong meant getting positive coverage from Armstrong pal Markos Moulitsas as well. Of course, there were never any serious allegation of quid pro quo there, only suspicions. Because Henke is the lone QandO contributor who actually lives in Virginia, my guess is that the other two will follow his lead a bit but largely focus on other matters — and you can be sure the lefty blogs in Old Dominion will keep an eye on it.
Also worth noting: Compared to the disclosure issues surrounding John McCain’s web consultants, Henke and the Allen campaign have handled the announcement in an entirely appropriate manner. Henke suspended his own blogging after the 28th, while discussions were ongoing with Allen’s camp, then announced the change in his first post back, and has since added a disclaimer to the bottom of each post:
“Jon Henke is the Netroots Coordinator for the George Allen Senate campaign.”
Interesting, then, that Pat Hynes and Nicco Mele are PR and campaign veterans — yet they were outed by reporters, and ended up looking less professional because of it. Hynes and Mele had certain imperatives from their other jobs that conflicted with their blogging disclosure, but as a hobbyist turned pro, Henke didn’t have to contend with the same issues. He also benefited from having so recently seen what not to do. And though it’s more a case of avoiding a pitfall than doing something especially brilliant, it bodes well enough for Henke that he passed this test.
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