To Blog or Not to Blog...That is the question

Re: Guest speaker: Jonah Seiger, GSPM faculty member and communications consultant, specializing in Interactive Media strategies. A founding partner of Connections Media LLC, he has managed political and public affairs campaigns for leading political candidates, industry associations, advocacy groups, and Fortune 500 companies for over a decade.

Last night we heard from Mr. Seiger who commented on the fact that not all political candidates utilize the blog. Specifically, some incumbents do not rely on blogs because it does not fit into their strategy, whereas contenders should utilize blogs as a means to directly attack the incumbent.

I found it interesting that some incumbents do not utilize blogs. Having a direct and open line of communication with your voters is imperative, especially if your opponent is using a blog. However, there are some negative aspects to having a blog as an incumbent such as immediate attacks from the opponent - we don't want our dirty laundry aired as an incumbent. Therefore it seems to me that blogs are more useful as a tool to be offensive during a campaign.

Are blogs a tool for offensive campaigning? If you were an incumbent would you use a blog on your campaign web site?