Grading the campaign blogs

This year’s campaigns are beginning to shape up and get their websites together. One thing that I like about a number of the websites I link to is the blog portion of the website. A growing number of these sites feature a blog, many times by the candidate him/herself, and some that are also open to a number of folks who contribute to the campaign (such as volunteers.)

As such, I’ve linked specifically to the candidate’s blog in cases where I’ve found that they have a related one linked from their overall site. Today I’m going to take a pass through the ones I’m aware of. All of these are linked from monoblogue, so I’m not going to bother with hyperlinks on this post.

Before I begin, I do owe hat tips to the “Big Three” local bloggers who have pointed me at various times to local candidate sites as I try to secure a database of links to them, letting the people decide for themselves – assuming they would like to spend a few minutes perusing the campaign site and getting to know their positions on issues rather than depend on the 30-second TV ad that’s usually more about tearing the opponent down than stating where they stand positionwise. Most folks who take the time to read monoblogue and the other sites likely don’t fall in that latter category.

The grading here will be subjective, based on the number, character, and variety of posts. I’ll not go into the nuts and bolts of positions stated within each post; even if somebody is completely opposite my point of view, they’ll still be graded highly if the blog and its posts are well-written.

Let us begin with Maryland Senate candidate (and current Lieutenant Governor) Michael Steele’s blog. First I need to apologize for having a dead link to his blog, this has been fixed.

I probably could have kept it as a dead link and gotten the same effect though, there’s been no posts within the last month. Other than a spate around Civil Rights Day (aka MLK Day) there’s not been much placed here. It’s almost like Michael Steele is afraid to say a whole lot after his stem cell gaffe. The last post was basically a shill for contributions.

On that basis, I would have to give Michael Steele’s blog a D. If he’s not going to pay much attention to it, the blog is really not worth having on the site. If someone from the Steele campaign reads this, perhaps they can take pointers from other blogs I’m familiar with and will grade as I go.

Another GOP candidate is Daniel Muffoletto. His campaign website links to a blog but there’s nothing in it except what seems like a test post, thus I didn’t link it separately. He gets a big fat F.

Continuing on the GOP side, Daniel “Wig Man” Vovak blogs on almost a daily basis, generally very short entries about how the campaign is going and the curse he has had placed on Michael Steele. Of late he also notes about how many campaign cards he has handed out (gaining on 9,000.) The blog is extensive and goes back all the way to December for the 2006 campaign.

This is an interesting one to grade out. It’s a little bit like blogging in sound bites, which to me is a minus, but he’s a pretty regular blogger as well and reading on the evolution of his shoe leather campaign is intriguing. So I’m going to give it a B-, which could be improved with longer posts. I’d love to see his psychic/campaign manager toss in a few posts as well.

Now I’ll turn to the Democrat side, starting with Kweisi Mfume. His blog’s also been active awhile, nearly a year. It only had a few posts over the first few months, but lately has been updated on a fairly regular basis.

The site has had an interesting change over the course of 11 months. At the start, Mfume actually did take a few turns blogging and the posts were more of a personal character. In the past few months, though, most of the entries are used simply to link to other resources or news stories about the campaign or relevant issues. This coincided with “Dan” becoming the sole blogger. While many blogs that I read on a daily basis use this approach to highlight news stories they find interesting, I’m not so sure it’s the best format for a political blog. I actually liked the early entries better than the last ones.

The blog does have one plus though as they allow comments. I didn’t take a lot of time to read the comments, but the ability to provide feedback is a plus. In this instance, I’ll grade the blog a C+.

Allan Lichtman is another Democrat hopeful. His blog has a lot to recommend it as far as enjoyability. He and several other folks contribute to the blog, and the posts run the gamut from Lichtman’s accounting of his recent trip to New Orleans to birthday wishes for him and his son. They have even gone to archives of his posts in other places which runs entries back to January of 2005.

It has a good mix of commentary, postings on campaign events and appearances, and shows something about his character and the devotion of those people truly behind his campaign. While I’m most likely 180 degrees removed from him on the issues, I would recommend it as a good reading experience. He gets a very solid A.

Thus far, that is the extent of campaign site blogging on the Maryland Senate race. Next, I’ll turn to a Delaware Senate hopeful, Republican Dennis Protack.

Currently his blog nearly fits on one page, I barely had to scroll down to see it in its entirety. With one post in March on the ports issue (and 5 total since its inception in January), it seems to me another case where, if the candidate is not going to put his (or his campaign’s) full effort into the blog, why have it? The entries themselves are short and fairly well-written, but the interesting thing to me is that each entry ends with a question. It appears Protack is using the blog to solicit comments from the public. That’s noble in and of itself, but the lack of comments show that approach is not working. In his case, I give the blog a D+.

Moving down the Eastern Shore to Virginia, one U.S. Senate hopeful has a blog. Democrat challenger Harris Miller has the site, which is somewhat new – just starting up in February. It holds a lot of promise, in that the few entries (by various contributors, including Miller himself) speak to the variety of issues the challenger holds dear and points out differences between he and incumbent Sen. George Allen. Comments are allowed, and the site mixes news and commentary quite well. With some more diligence, Miller could have an excellent blogsite. As it is, I’ll rate it a C.

Shifting my focus to the various state Congressional races, the only blog that exists for the Delmarva district races (MD-1, VA-2, DE-at large) is a brand new blog by Delaware Democrat Dennis Spivack. The first entry was placed this past Wednesday. The two posts (an introduction post and one on health care) are nicely written.

There’s a few points taken off for not allowing comments, and several marks deducted for placing the blog on Blogspot. With the recent problems there (ask “Hadley V. Baxendale” about that!), the campaign would be much better off simply placing it as part of their overall site. I suppose there’s a “stealth” factor in this as normally leafing through Blogspot you wouldn’t find a campaign blog and several blogs I link to for political commentary reside on Blogspot. And, of course, it’s free.

As it stands, I will give this new blog a B+. Spivack’s team has a great opportunity to turn this blog into a solid campaign aid.

Coming back to the Free State, both Democrat challengers feature a blog on their site. I’ll work in alphabetical order and comment on Doug Duncan’s first.

This is another site that has all the plusses as far as these blogs go. The blog is updated regularly, almost daily. There are a number of contributors, including Duncan himself and members of his family. Comments are allowed, although there’s not a whole lot of them. Most of the posts are commentary on the campaign and issues, rather than just a link to something else. But they also get the word out about appearances and campaign events in a timely fashion. Plus the Duncan political quiz (posted April 6th) is pretty funny. I’ve lived here 18 months and I almost aced it…sad in a way.

Many of the bloggers who I comment on in this post could learn a lot about how to put together a blog in reading the Duncan campaign’s edition. All in all, another excellent blog, certainly the best of the whole lot. A+.

Martin O’Malley also has a campaign blog which has well-written entries and allows comments. A nice variety of contributors add their thoughts, including LG candidate Anthony Brown. The largest problem with O’Malleys blog is the dearth of posts. There’s only about 10 posts covering the time since November of last year. That alone hurts the grade. If the O’Malley campaign really wanted to reach out to the blogosphere, they have potential to do so if they placed more emphasis on posting in their blog once in awhile. I’m giving the site a B-.

The final blog I’ll review is one that links to incumbent Delaware treasurer Jack Markell’s campaign site. The odd thing about the “Blog for Delaware” is that it’s not truly a campaign blog. I would categorize it as more of a political blog that Markell happens to contribute to on a semi-regular basis.

So the grading is difficult to do. Yes, it is pretty well-written as far as arguments go, but there’s not the updating that’s necessary to make this a great campaign blog. It lies betwixt and between, and is most useful as background info rather than a source of campaign news and thoughts. On that basis I have to grade it as a C.

As a review, by political race:

Maryland U.S. Senate:

Lichtman – A
Vovak – B minus
Mfume – C plus
Steele – D
Muffoletto – F

Delaware U.S. Senate:

Protack – D plus

Virginia U.S. Senate:

Miller – C

Delaware U.S. House (at large):

Spivack – B plus

Maryland Governor:

Duncan – A plus (best of show)
O’Malley – B minus

Delaware statewide:

Markell – C

I’ll update the links continually as I find out about them and grade the blogs again every so often as the political season continues. With the filing deadline here and in Delaware not until over the summer, there’s still time for races to shift and new websites to be brought online.

A lot of people have some improving to do, others just need to keep up their good work.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.