Squeaky Clean Blogs

Phil posted an article from the Congressional Management Foundation about how candidates are utilizing blogs. The CMF Survey went into detail about the different types of blogs that they identified from a personal blog to a travel blog. I thought that was a little nit-picky. To me, a blog is a blog.

It was interesting to see what candidates posted on their blogs. Senator Patty Murray and Senator Jim Talent kept their constituents informed about the recent CODELs to Iraq. Senator Patrick Leahy believes that Vermonters will be interested in the details of every Senate roll call vote. Congresswoman and Senate hopeful Katherine Harris posts her thoughts about the 4th of July and the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

After reading each of these blogs, I was shocked at their similarities. They were all squeaky-clean and sanitized. I am not naive enough to think that the candidate actually writes the information himself/herself, but repeating the party talking points or your latest press release is pretty boring.

After all, why do we read blogs?

I read blogs so that I can find information that I would not find elsewhere. Our class emphasizes that blogs are cutting edge and get more in-depth than the MSM. Yet almost all of the information I found on these candidate blogs could be located by reading the local paper or staying informed. Of course, I could be a poor example because I like to think that I'm more informed than most people.

I would just prefer to see candidates with their gloves off. If they have a real opinion, it'd be nice if they'd share it. While that opens them up to criticism, it's what makes blogs unique. Senator Russ Feingold posted his controversial opinion about regulating blogs via the FEC on DailyKos. Perhaps he can afford to do that because he was just re-elected for another 6 years. Other politicians seem to shy away from controversy so that they can focus on getting re-elected.

Ideally, it'd be nice to read something new and interesting on candidate blogs instead of the same-old, same-old MSM stories. And most importantly, it'd be nice if the candidates would be real instead of cookie-cutter.