Should Conyers or Feingold blog?

Congressman John Conyers and other politicians like Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) have embraced the "blogosphere" as a way to get their message out. Bloggers everywhere unite because you have gotten the attention of the folks inside the Beltway - for good or for bad.

It was probably inevitable that the blogging community would soon see members of Congress embrace this forum. But have they done us a great service or disservice?

The blogging community works because it gives a voice to people like you and I. If we disagree with the "official" position or the mainstream media, we are free to bring in another perspective on the blogs. Unlike members of Congress, we are not important enough to hold a CNN press conference. The blogs give the average Joe a soapbox to voice his or her opinions.

Legislators already have that soapbox, but they're extending their debates/arguments in Congress to the blogs. When Russ Feingold disagrees with Kos on FEC regulation or campaign finance reform, he is quick to post a blog. It's a good way to get his position out to a wide audience, but I can't help but wait for the floodgates to open as every member of Congress scrambles to get the upper hand by posting and responding to other Congressmembers - much like the House and Senate floor.

It will be interesting to watch this medium develop in the next 3-5 years. I for one hope that bloggers defend their turf against members of Congress.

When Conyers speaks does anyone listen?

Rep. John Conyers, one of the longest serving members of the U.S. House is angry because the "MSM" (main steam media) won't cover the "Downing Street Memo." This infamous document first reported in Great Britain alleges that the United States falsified pre-war Iraq intelligence to "create" favorable conditions for war.

In his article on Conyers and the "Downing Street Memo," Newspaper columnist Sylvester Brown goes off on a tirade trying to explain how media is "packaged and sold" and thus will not rehash Iraq pre-war intelligence. Instead the MSM will favor the Michael Jackson trial and other pop culture news.

While I tend to favor Brown's argument, I take further issue with the messenger of John Conyers.

Frankly, it's hard for me to take Congressman Conyers seriously. John Conyers is one of the most bitter partisans in Washington. He has a large online following courtesy of his blog (which will be addressed in the next entry), but he makes so much noise on every issue that his pleas on serious issues are ignored much like the boy who cried wolf.

A google search turns up fine examples of Conyers' crusades:

In 2003, Conyers called upon Karl Rove to resign. Instead of resigning, Karl Rove helped re-elect one of the weakest sitting Presidents in history.

Conyers tried to take issue with the Valarie Plame CIA leak... It was an inexcuseable leak in our government, but certainly not Watergate-esque.

In Dec. 2004, Conyers called for hearings on the Ohio vote count (AFTER Kerry conceeded). While the country needed to come together, Conyers tried to make 2004 Ohio reminiscent of 2000 Florida - rehashing old wounds and further deepening the political divide.

With so much noise, so often, is it any wonder the MSM ignore him? Sitting here, I can't say I blame them.

Voter Registration Info on the Internet

It is crucial, the authors say, to put voter registration information on the website. This can include voter registration forms, absentee balloting forms. Most importantly, this part of your website must have deadlines for registration.

It would be more useful if all of the forms were physically housed and accessible on the candidate's webpage. In my experience, I found that our campaign merely referred people to the South Carolina Board of Elections. This proved problematic because the SC Board of Elections had an outdated web site and many of the forms were hard to access. It might be against elections law to physically house those forms on a candidate webpage, however. Although it might be useful to have the forms readily accessible, the campaigns might not want to deal with the potential for liability from the number of voters who cannot vote because of a mistake on their form.

If it could be done safely and securely, it might prove more beneficial to allow voter registration via the internet.

Issue Web Pages

I was astonished to read that visitors spent an average of 22 minutes on John McCain's issue pages in the 2000 election. As the authors point out (on pg. 96) our democracy has been reduced to 10 seconds soundbites. I have to wonder whether McCain voters were higher educated, and therefore spent more time on his issues pages. George Bush won the nomination, as we have learned, with a very poor internet strategy.

The authors did make a good point about the layout of issue web pages. If voters were to spend an average of 22 minutes on your page, you cannot bore them with white pages on policy. Instead, an effective issues webpage will have lots of good graphics and pictures as well as informative text. The text must be kept concise and direct. Most voters do not have the time or the patience to wade through wonkish policy documents. You do run a risk in dumbing it down, however.

It seems like a delicate balancing act, however. You might lose a lot of your highly educated voters by speaking in overly simple arguments, and the internet might be the one place where wonkish policy documents could thrive. As the internet becomes more mainstream, consultants might have dumbed their issues down too much as they seek to appeal to a wider audience. Could we eventually see the point where web sites become as sensationalistic and overly simple as televison ads?

Maintence is not optional

I enjoyed the example about the poor strategy of the George W. Bush campaign website originally. I could specifically relate to the parody website GWBush.com. I showed many of my friends, and it really made them mad. I was amazed at the indifferent attitude of the Bush-Cheney campaign managers toward their website originally.

I worked on a race in South Carolina, I was always hounding our campaign about how poor our website was compared to our competitors. Our announcement website was a poor attempt to just put a site on the internet. By campaign time, we had a great site, but for the first few months, I was incredibly frustrated. I checked it frequently - for new ads or campaign finance progress - and there were few updates and poor content. By the end, we had a blog, online fundraising, and many other good technologies. We didn't lose because of our website, but I feel like it would have been more useful to have had all of that from the start instead of in October.

In my experience, many in my generation (and even voters near my parents age) would ask me for the campaign website. Instead of relying on the newspaper endorsements, they read through each candidate's website platform before choosing where to place their vote. That's amazing, and it's part of the persuasive power of the internet. If campaign managers can figure out how to harnness this power, they might see dividends on election day. If they remain in the dark ages, it's likely their job and their candidate will be history.