( – promoted by DavidNYC)
Despite handing back to the keys to Swing State Project a year ago, I felt it appropriate to defend myself against Danny Glover’s NYT hitpiece on the only blog I’ve ever called home. I can’t speak for all the bloggers on his “list,” but I can correct MANY of the innacuracies about me personally and the Lamont campaign in the piece.
For starters, here is Glover’s admitted thesis:
I do think it’s interesting that some bloggers made a name for themselves by fighting the establishment and billing themselves as revolutionaries but at the same time are willing to work for campaigns. That, to me, is part of the establishment — at least in a broad sense. And that is the point of my article.
I’m curious as to what part of Ned Lamont’s campaign was “establishment” when he was down 60 points in the polls to a former VP nominee; when every single organ of party infrastructure was fighting tooth and nail against us; when I decided to leave the DNC (now that’s establishment!) to join Ned and people literally said it would be “difficult to hire” me in the future if I made that move. Yet three of the thirteen candidates on his chart were hired “bloggers” by the Lamont campaign — that’s of “four bloggers on his campaign team.” Of that group, one was paid to actually blog … me. The other three were a tech guy, research staff, and graphic designer who wrote favorably about Ned before ever joining the team.
Here’s something else Glover apparently doesn’t get. Blogging was probably one of the smallest pieces of my employment. It’s a conversation I’ve tried to have with others at the National Journal, but no one quite seems to get. When you take on the role of an “Internet Director” on a campaign, it’s more than just blogging and talking to bloggers. Scott Shields of the Menendez campaign has more on this.
Further, I personally am not blogger turned campaign staff. I worked on a campaign long before ever consistently blogging on any independent site. Glover’s chart cites me blogging for the “now defunct” Grow Ohio. But Grow Ohio was the site I was paid to write for by Congressman Sherrod Brown. It had his picture all over the site and a nice disclaimer at the bottom that said “Paid for by Friends of Sherrod Brown.” The only independent blog I have ever been a regular front page poster to is Swing State Project, and he doesn’t even list that on my line … he also conveniently omitted the fact I was the DNC blogger for some time as well.
And finally, his chart implies that a paycheck is driving bloggers to write nice things about our employeers. Maybe that’s not the intent, but it’s the implication. But the quotes he pulls from Sirota and I (Lamont staffers) were both written AFTER the campaign was over. Could it be that some of us he noted in the piece have the ability to work for candidates we believe in before receiving a paycheck and continue to believe in long after our final one was cashed?
Tim
P.S. They even got the amount of $$$ I made with Ned wrong. Go figure. I even let Glover know that via email after his first piece showed up on MSNBC’s website.
One point that I’d add is this. Glover spends three of his thirteen lines on Lamont campaign staff, more than any other candidate. Yet none of the Lieberman campaign’s bloggers were on the list. Why?
Dan Gerstein was writing as DANGERstein long before he signed on to the Lieberman’s spokesmodel (before he was moved to Comms Director). He wrote regularly on Lieberman’s campaign blog. Likewise, Eric Blankenbaker was the Lieberman campaign’s full-time blogger. I don’t know what his official title was, but he was the author of dozens of idiotic, noxious posts on Joe’s site.
As much as Glover’s piece is a hit piece on bloggers, it is a hit piece on the Lamont campaign – an attempt to smear Lamont’s staff and supporters as somehow unethical and dishonest. It’s sad that the New York Times devoted so much space to this crap.
And understanding of the blogosphere is spot-on. But I’d like to add my thoughts about what Tim refers to as Glover’s “thesis.”
I’ve been involved in the lefty political blogosphere since 2002 – in other words, for almost as long as it’s been possible to make such a claim. Back then, on DailyKos (the place I principally hung out at and still do), one of the most common refrains was, “There are so many great ideas generated on this site every day. How can we reach someone at the DNC who might be interested in implementing some of them?”
In other words, pretty much since day one, we’ve been asking for a seat at the table, for our voices to be heard. As Markos himself says, we aren’t interested in crashing the gates so that we can remain outside them! We support candidates, we give them money, we volunteer for them – all because we want to see change happen. And some of us are even lucky enough to actually work for candidates. Glover thinks we want to be some sort of permanent outside agitator – always critics, never playwrights or directors or actors.
Needless to say, not only is this view absurdly misguided, it runs directly counter to our founding ethos. Remember what Howard Dean said just before his famous scream? “And then we’re going to Washington, D.C ., to take back the White House!” He said “we” – not him, we. Glover might view us as sell-outs, tainted now by the prospect of money and power. But he’s dead wrong. We aren’t sell outs – we’ve always wanted to buy in.
Part of the motivation for these types of articles may simply be that it’s eye-opening to learn that some people get paid executive-level salaries to blog, when millions of people do it for free. I don’t think there’s necessarily something wrong with that, but it is counter to the view of blogging that has been presented to and understood by most people.
I think David is right that bloggers shouldn’t be punished for being involved in campaigns, but when most of us get involved in campaigns, we don’t make $100,000! At the very least, some people are going to want to rubberneck at this phenomenon.
I’ve tried loading the chart via this link, via beltwayblog and directly from the NYT. Everytime it is totally unreadable. I use Internet Explorer 6.0. Does anyone know the problem?