Political blogs, the new grassroots tool?
Blogs have reached the pont where, like e-mail and websites before them, they are a powerful tool for moblizing people in grassroots campaigns. Is this because they are better grassroots tools than e-mail or websites? To some extent yes, they do have the give and take of discussion board, but really I think their power is that blogs are hot. Blogs are in the news and hot news. What is being written on blogs of all stripes is influencing public opinion. A software review, a scathing criticism of a public figure can quickly be picked up by the popular press and snowball from there. As you can see from this article below, blogs will have an effect on the up coming U.S. election.
By Anastasia Ustinova Washington Bureau [Chicago Tribune, via Yahoo News]
Jeff Seemann, a 35-year-old Ohio Democrat and former disc jockey, is little-known in his community and has not received much support from his party, yet he has raised at least $25,000 online and hired a dozen staffers for his congressional campaign.
His secret? A group of political bloggers who frequent the political blog dailykos.com has endorsed Seemann, along with seven other Democratic candidates running against Republican incumbents. Their goal is to raise money and visibility for these candidates.