( – 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.