Oct 17 - 46/45 - McCain +01
My Letter to the Obama Camp
[The following is a letter sent today to Barack Obama's Campaign Manager]
Fellow Obama supporter,
The bloggers are itching for change.
I've been a political blogger since before the Kerry debacle. One thing I've learned is that the Blogsphere is a more fanatical, well read and unforgiving group than you find almost anywhere else. Being such, it only serves certain masters. Despite being up in the polls, Hillary is getting slammed online. Her "moderate" pandering and early support for the war continue to win her nothing but scorn amongst liberal bloggers. Obama on the other hand is being quietly, haphazardly championed by hometown blogs like ours. With a little effort, the Obama camp could take these mismatched bands of bloggers and pull them together into a virtual army...
[continued in comments]
By Robert - 6/28/2007
23 Comments:
LETTER CONTINUED...
Now, I realize that you already have a "blog" section at the official website. The problem is that it's nothing like the familiar format that has made political blogging so infectious. As it is, it's too dry, too narrative, too safe.
A blog for a candidate as exciting as Obama should be absolutely swarming with traffic, yet I see many threads with under 20 comments! This section of the site, with its campaign trail updates, does serve an important purpose, but alone it's failing to harness any of the massive potential of the Blogsphere.
On top of that, the "Community Blogs" are disorganized and require registration to even view. When I click "View all blogs" I see less than 10 comments in the top 10 posts combined! Clearly this is not working either.
What's needed is a separate, well-organized, free-standing blog network which has all the raw political angst that bloggers demand, a place to go to both get involved in real debates about candidates and issues locally and to get an overview of what is being blogged nationally.
Imagine if an existing blog which has already endorsed Obama was chosen from each state (like ours: TheChiefSource.com). The administrator of which was contacted and asked if he/she would like to participate in the "BloggersForBarack" network. If the initial call-to-arms was personalized and from the Obama camp itself, any blogger would literally jump at the invite.
(I'd actually suggest enlisting multiple blogs from each state based on roughly one-third of that state's number of electoral college votes. That way every state is represented by at least one blog, while the network's distribution remains practical. For example, my home state Ohio would get 7 spots.)
Overnight you'd have 179 state-specific blogs each with an existing staff, readership and unique, authentic style at your disposal, this instead of asking supporters to individually create new, all-Obama blogs from scratch.
In addition to recruiting the affiliate blogs, a "bloghub" or main page for the network would be created where the best writing, best threads and best imagery of the day were showcased. Each day's "top stories" could be displayed along with a ranking of the top 50 blogs in the network (based in part on camp-friendly content).
Without censoring the affiliate blogs you could greatly control the content through the decisions of what to display at the hub and which blogs to award high marks. Also, you'd have the bonus luxury of giving special attention to key states.
Another critical difference from your existing blog community (housed at BarackObama.com) is that Obama need not endorse the content. BloggersForBarack could be billed as an organic project without any link to the official site. It would truly be "Of the bloggers, By the bloggers, For the bloggers." A disclaimer could even be added saying something like:
"BloggersForBarack.com owes its inception to Barack Obama's belief in the importance of open forums for political debate and discussion. This being the case, the content of affiliate blogs is not censored in any way and therefore not endorsed in whole or in part by Barack Obama, himself."
This way there's no need to water down the raw emotion, touchy subjects, candidate bashing and no-holds-barred debate, which is the life-blood of the Blogsphere and drives all real traffic.
Each of the 179 blogs would add a widget to their sidebar displaying their current ranking in the BloggersForBarack network (and in turn these widgets would drive traffic back to the hub).
You can imagine that if these blogs currently have around 400 devoted visitors per day, that the hub could easily be hit with 10,000 readers the day of its launch and 2 million in its first month (and that's without sending out a single mailer to a tired mailing list).
To avoid floods of 100s of comments, all commenting would take place at the original affiliate blogs. The hub would simply display the winning posts and direct readers to the source blog for discussion. It could cycle through various posts throughout the day to spread the traffic evenly and find the all-important balance between too little reader participation and too much in any one place.
While every affiliate blog would be chosen initially for its Obama endorsement and its heavy political slant, the sites wouldn't be limited to repetitive Obama news...or even strictly politics. The only way to engage bloggers and keep them participating for the next 16 months is through variety. The goal is to create a network of blogs that are authentically local, sticky, and pro-Obama without being heavy handed.
Tons of great writers will work for free and bring their readership with them. While it might be hard to get these people to donate cash or step away from their computers to go door-to-door, it only takes a bit of encouragement to get them to spend countless hours doing what they love to do (and do best). And if you make this a competition of sorts, bloggers will work tirelessly for the recognition. Recognition that costs you nothing.
I saw Obama speak this February in Cleveland. Like many of my fellow bloggers, I truly believe that he's the only candidate who can turn things around for America and would love to help him secure the Democratic Nomination. Help us help Obama.
Looking forward to your response,
Robert Hewitt
There is a good chance that someone from the Obama camp will be visiting TCS and reading this thread.
Take this opportunity to throw out your own suggestion.
Bob, Obama's campaign in 2008 needs to do what the Dean campaign did in 2004 and reinvent the way that campaigns are run online. Blogs across our state and across the country have developed networks and it would be great to see Obama use those to his advantage. Bloggers aren't just geeky teenagers anymore. They are geeky 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 year olds as our site shows each and everyday.
This is a great way for all of us (Barack supporters) to stay connected and involved in his campaign. We could read the blogs from cities Barack is touring and post more about his ideas. It would allow supporters in Ohio to stay in touch with supporters in Iowa, for example. We could send a more unified and inspired message about Barack. Great idea, Bob.
Thought I glimpsed you @ the rally, Bob. The marching bands were awesome, and it was great to see Obama in person, to see if he has the charisma (Kerry? Ha!)required of a top candidate. He does.
I am personally not part of the blogging world, but understand how important it is. My ignorant impression of a blog is a place where people can voice their unfiltered and honest opinions. It would be interesting to see if a real presidential candidate is willing to create such a venue.
Great idea Bob, with so many bloggers already behind him, he cannot lose with this suggestion.
After the debates his campaign need a shot in the arm, and this is it.
Can't wait to hear his response
I'm obsessed with Obama... can anyone else honestly say that about their favorite presidential candidate?
Sorry kids, but after living through 13 presidential campaigns, when I hear this kind of youthful enthusiasm about a politician, I always think of Tom Waits' singin' "Step Right Up"
"That's right, it filets, it chops
It dices, slices, never stops
lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn
and it picks up the kids from school
It gets rid of unwanted facial hair
it gets rid of embarrassing age spots
It delivers a pizza
and it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that's been at large
under the chaise longe for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar
And it's only a dollar, step right up
it's only a dollar, step right up"
Waits sucks but I agree with your premise, he hasn't been defined so all these people are projecting their own views to fill in the blank-bloomberg is enjoying a bit of this as well currently-its like a lovesick 12 year old moonig over some other kid.
"And they call it puppy love......."
Dear Obama Campaign,
Tell your guy he needs to come up with something other than having a cool sounding name and not being Hillary Clinton if he's going to have a chance at securing much other than the undermotivated, disillusioned twenty-something vote next year.
Hillary's going to clean his clock!
good idea but I doubt it will happen...blogs are places where ppl. throw their opinions/idea's up and argue, no one changes someone else's mind..that's why you have left and right blogs...you may learn something but thats about it
I have to admit that I am completely confused by the national polling that shows Hillary with a large lead that seems to be slowly growing over Obama.
Anonymous,
You say:
"good idea but I doubt it will happen...blogs are places where ppl. throw their opinions/idea's up and argue, no one changes someone else's mind..that's why you have left and right blogs...you may learn something but thats about it."
I completely agree that the Blogsphere is totally entrenched. Ours is 100% blue. Others are 100% red. BloggersForBarack is not intended to convert Conservatives though, it is intended to convert Liberals. It is a powerful weapon build for the primaries not the general election.
We've been doing this for 3 years now and we've had every brand of liberal contribute.
Personally, I am an pro-gun Democrat, who's concerned most with foreign policy. Any politician that supports the War in Iraq is dead to me.
Kyle is a strategic, pragmatic, loyal Dem. Chuck is a pro-church, universal health care, pro-union Dem. Jeff is a Libertarian. TimJayFitz is a Chomsky-brand liberal. Terra is a genuine tree-hugger.
And then there are those like T-dawg and Fred who are critical of the left while not being squarely on the right. We disagree daily and we influence each other's opinions daily.
But more importantly is the silent audience. I could name a dozen readers, who are yet undecided on which candidate they'll support in the primaries. They come hear everyday and quietly listen as we go back and forth over the issues. There is no doubt in my mind that this format has a meaningful impact on these voters.
The key is to take this existing formula and magnify it. Nine times out of ten, the Blogsphere will naturally champion a candidate like Obama over a candidate like Hillary.
I know someone who knows people who like Hillary! I was really surprised to hear from him that young people, old people, and women prefer Hillary. I think it's because they haven't looked into Obama. He has the spirit of the Democratic party.
Terra,
You've met a person who met a person who likes Hillary? Sure they weren't on the payroll?
The Obama campaign has already made plenty of overtures that they won't be collaborating with true grassroots (netroots) organizations.
They took over the Obama MySpace created by a person like you at Chief Source. They totally disrespected the fact that this person had put countless free hours of work into building the MySpace page.
Then, closer to home, the Obama campaign denied Jerid Kurtz access to a function because he informed them he is a "blogger."
The Obama campaign doesn't want people like you around because this takes message control out of their hands. They'd rather see people like you go away then deal with you in a respectful manner.
I had a similar experience with the Kerry Campaign in 2004 regarding them taking over Meetup groups I had worked hard to build.
This is a path that most top tier political candidates take... get used to it.
Great point about all the different political personalities that support Obama.
It's important to rmemeber that we all have on ething in common, and that is that we would like to see a less political politician. We all want a change, a candidate who is not well connected to washington's special interest groups.
The fact that he has seperated himself from iraq is huge, and it is my biggest reason for prefering him over the other candidates.
That said, I'd still vote rudy if he can win the nomination.
Jeff,
Do you have a problem with Rudy invoking 911 when he talks about health care, immigration, education, renewable energy, poverty and crime?
I don't mind his platform one bit, but his exploitation of the 911 victims honestly makes my skin crawl.
"Imagine if an existing blog which has already endorsed Obama was chosen from each state (like ours: TheChiefSource.com). The administrator of which was contacted and asked if he/she would like to participate in the "BloggersForBarack" network."
There's no way this would be good for Obama's campaign. Before long, someone would write something stupid and Barack would take the heat for it. His campaign can't take on that liability.
Bloggers4Brownback actually started denouncing Heliocentrism (the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun). Overnight, Brownback became instantly associated with the ridiculous notion.
A similar thing happened with John Edwards.
I just can't see a serious campaign endorsing blogs that they don't have the bandwidth to keep tabs on.
Bob, my skin crawls for any shitty emotive anecdotal argument, and there is no shortage of those from anyone running for office.
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