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Recent news about several political campaigns illustrates the still bumpy road they are traveling to learn how to effectively proceed in the era of blogs.
Hillary Clinton "held her first blogger-only conference call" reports Katharine Q. Seelye in The New York Times. Barack Obama has not participated in any blogger-only calls but, as we have seen here at BlogHer, has responded to blogger questions via other methods. Despite increased interaction with bloggers there is still somewhat of a feel of candidates not getting it, as the focus of the Clinton call was, in part, to request that certain talking points be seeded into the blogosphere:
The purpose of the conference call was to thank bloggers for their support, deliver her talking points and have those talking points conveyed to the blogosphere — and ultimately to the superdelegates who may control the outcome of the race.
“Your voices make a real difference, and your engagement in these incredibly significant ways helps to set the ground for what we are trying to say in the campaign,” she told them, adding that they can “influence the rest of the blogosphere and beyond.”
The key talking point presented in the call was "It's the map, not the math" which several of the bloggers on the call did share afterwards including Pamela Leavey at The Democratic Daily and Katiebird at The Confluence who writes:
The meat of the conversation is that Hillary sees a clear path to the nomination. She said that the campaign had “acknowledgment” that Hillary is ahead in the popular vote. And (she said) she expects to be ahead on the popular vote after the last primary on June 3rd.
However, as the message has appeared, not every blogger is buying the argument. Sara at Dreaming in Wanderlust says: "This faulty argument is one of a desperate campaign."
Clinton supporter Taylor Marsh has a recording of the call here.
John McCain regularly participates in blogger calls and not just with uncritical supporters as again, BlogHer discovered. Given the McCain campaign's seeming transparency and savvy, it makes the latest blogger outreach move a bit of a head scratcher.
The new "Spread The Word" section of JohnMcCain.com invites supporters to:
Help spread the word about John McCain on news and blog sites. Your efforts to help get the message out about John McCain's policies and plan for the future is one of the most valuable things you can do for this campaign. You know why John McCain should be the next President of the United States and we need you to tell others why.
Nothing too out of the ordinary there but then it veers into a call to engage in behavior which is generally frowned upon in the blogosphere. The site provides daily talking points, links to suggested blog on which to comment (seemingly regardless of the specific content or posts) and offers reward points for reporting comments left on blogs.
This program has been roundly criticized across the spectrum of the political blogosphere. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wants disclosure and suggests reciprocity:
In the spirit of transparency, if any of you leave pro-McCain comments in order to earn those “points,” I request that you disclose that information when you post here.
In the spirit of open dialogue and outreach, I encourage the rest of you all to reciprocate and leave your thoughts about McCain–say, his decision to retain Juan Hernandez, speak at the the La Raza/The Race conference, embrace anti-assimilationist campaign finance co-chair Jerry Perenchio, and perpetuate global warming hysteria, for starters– on the McCain campaign blog.
Republican Michelle McGinty at Reformed Chicks Blabbing on Beliefnet expresses her disappointment:
If we had a decent candidate, we would be doing this on our own. It's telling that he has to bribe people to do it.
Jonathan Martin at Politico has response from the McCain campaign to clarify the purpose and goals of the program.
And beyond the extensively blogged presidential race, bloggers are flexing their muscles in covering state and local races. Monica Davey reports in The New York Times that the US Senate race between humorist Al Franken and incumbent Norm Coleman "is going to the blogs" and warns:
What Mr. Franken’s circumstance has proven, though, is that no Minnesota candidate this fall can afford to ignore Mr. Brodkorb, or the rest of the state’s vast universe of Web sites devoted to local politics. Experts here say the abundance