California Conservative

“Chicago — The YearlyKos Convention is attracting national notoriety for how bloggers are changing the political and media landscape. But while the spotlight is shining on a few of the 1,400 online pundits convened here who draw more readers than a lot of daily newspapers, the next frontier of political blogging will be led by people like Phillip Anderson.

Nevertheless, the mop-haired New Yorker already has the state party chair asking him for help reaching liberal voters. His allure: Local bloggers can influence the outcome of small elections.” —
Joe Garofoli, SF Chronicle, Saturday, August 4, 2007

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The Democrats understand the political power of blogs. All the Democrat presidential candidates attended a blogger convention in Chicago. The GOP has no such similar event. Most Democrat candidates have sections of their campaigns devoted to bloggers. Note that even county and state Democrat chairs work closely with bloggers–I know of no such effort on the GOP side While conservatives use talk radio to it’s maximum affect, we do not use bloggers as well. A month ago I was on a panel, moderated by CRP Vice Chair Tom Del Beccaro, with Carla Marinucci and Dan Weintraub. Both of them agreed that the Internet and blogs can have a strong influence on elections. OK, GOP leaders, lets catch up and pass the Democrats. We need the blogs to pass along information, direction and action items. Until we make full use of it, the Democrats will have the advantage. Pass this along to your friends and to GOP leaders. What do you think, how can we make better use of the blogs and the Internet? do you think the blogs are over rated?

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Steve Frank is the publisher of California Political News and Views and a Senior Contributor to CaliforniaConservative.org. He is also a consultant currently working on gambling issues and advising other consultants on policy and coalition building.

Read more of his work here or at his blog.