Municipalist

Welcome to Politics 3.0

A new day has dawned, we are told, for the country and for both political parties. For those who vote for Republicans, as I do, the question is what is next. As the president elect has showed so vividly, and as his failed opponent demonstrated so frustratingly, the future is the Web. For better and for worse. For better: it can effectively be made use of to fight 'smears,' as well as serve as a hell of an instant monster-size event planner, provide myriad ways for people to take the reins themselves to connect to each other, and then so efficiently extract their cash. For worse: like TV it tends to glorify celebrity, and can so simply be exploited to intensify our partisanship as well as flatter our preconceptions and self regard. And as the Obama campaign showed, the Web can serve as a very effective space through which to direct packs of raging supporters to harass local news media. Wired offers a one-sided wrap-up of the Obama campaign's Internet successes here.

Republicans need to find new voices, and should consider starting with members of Congress who are effectively using social media tools and tactics. One good example is Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, whose tweets are sort of a clinic in how to work to reach out to those he and his elected colleagues are supposed to want to hear from and connect to. We discussed Hoekstra's smart Twitter use recently here.

And of course Republicans need to find a new generation, far outside the elected classes. Go online. We are here.

And it is ever important to remember that much of the mainstream media will offer bad ideas at a moment like this.

Also for Obama: What will these new coalitions and revved-up online communities do now? [See update below.] What if he does not deliver the immediate revolutionary change they seek? Prediction: A day will come in the next four years when Obama will wish he could stick in a drawer someplace this always-online coalition, then just pull it out when it is time to raise money and energize volunteers for re-election. But an electrified, now very-connected base does not work that way. You create it. Then it does what it wants. Ask my 21-month-old son.

So good luck with that. [And it has begun already: Here is video of Ralph Nader on election night doing just that.]

We have been hearing all morning about how idealism is now in. But so is innovation. These are good things. Barack Obama owned both concepts in the minds of the majority of voters. And the Web out of necessity will be at the center of the universe for the new administration as well as for its opponents. We look forward to what is next.

Update: Here is McClatchy Newspapers on "How Obama will deploy his Internet army". And here is the New York Times on "Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World."

[By the way, here is our favorite Municipalist post from the presidential campaign. Nutty, too long, but somehow great fun to read, though with a premise that is likely implausible. Exactly our kind of post!]

Update: Patrick Ruffini makes this important point: "The candidates who are successful online are the ones who don't just lead campaigns or political parties -- they lead movements. When they ask people to get involved, they really mean it. Our 2012 candidate has to be comfortable with building a movement. Before a change in strategy can work, our candidates need to change. Layering a good Internet strategy on top of someone running for President of the cocktail party circuit whose campaign only cares about bundling the most big checks in Q1 or Q2 of 2011 will not work. That model died in 2008."

Update 2, Nov. 10: The Washington Post reports on Obama's post-election Web plans, referencing the same point I made above about un-ringing that bell: "But Daou noted that the initiative could have a downside. Obama faced an intense backlash when he broke from the left on the issue of immunity for telecommunications companies that took part in the warrantless wiretapping program. 'People who have helped you reach this historic goal by self-organizing can also organize in opposition to your policies,' he said."

Thunderstruck: McCain Web and Twitter efforts limp to the finish line

Three examples showing how the candidate has been let down by a total absence, top to bottom, of any coherent interactive online presence:

First, I follow "Sarah_Palin" on Twitter, from whom I recently received these direct messages:

Sarah_Palin Hi. Just wanted your thoughts on Obama's aunt being found in South Boston... Have you talked to people about it? 7:30 PM Oct 30th

Sarah_Palin Right now, the issue that's resonating is that Obama accepts donations from non-citizens, like his aunt. She's illegal and on welfare. 8:35 AM Nov 1st

Days before the election, and this is the best you got? This type of appeal is really going to attract young voters or independents?

Even though "Sarah_Palin" does have 3,626 followers, I have no idea if she/he actually is connected to the campaign. [This person replied to two Twitter direct messages from me today asking for more info: "I'm not on Governor Palin's staff ... I'm just an enthusiastic supporter of Sarah Palin, not paid by or related in any way to the campaign or the GOP."] There seems to be zero reference to Twitter at all on JohnMcCain.com. So the campaign fails here, and this supporter has failed. This is how you waste an opportunity. Twitter is a way to connect and build relationships. All ya' gotta' do is make an effort to be real. These examples are just ... creepy.

Part 2: As of 11 a.m. EST today, The most recent post to  The McCain Report by Michael Goldfarb, one of three official campaign blogs linked from JohnMcCain.com, is 10 days old. Admittedly, official campaign blogs really are mattering less and less, as other online tactics are proving very effective. But the message this sends is one of incompetence.

Part 3: As I write this, the current post on the campaign's more straightforward "McCain Blog" is a video entitled "Mac is back," with AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" as soundtrack. Fine. But the visuals are nearly pointless. We mostly see the candidate, the running mate, the candidate's wife, etc., walking around a lot. Waving to crowds. The way to communicate the fact that enthusiasm for John McCain is peaking and is actually impacting the race is to show the people. The rallies. The faces. The signs. The energy. The campaign is making some positive gains, and there is plenty of enthusiasm across the country, utterly ignored by the mainstream media, but the McCain campaign's media and Web teams seem at a loss to capture it, show it off, exploit it. Thunderstruck, indeed.

McCain supporters have to be shaking their heads.

Trust me: We are.

So then the question: How much does this matter? The McCain campaign says it made 3 million voter contacts by phone on Sunday. Does that matter more?

Hey Zogby and Gallup: Get thee to Arkansas!

Yet another blogging FOM (Friend of Municipalist) is Steve Harrelson, who is Arkansas House majority leader. Steve's blog offers a fascinating graphic today that reveals: Arkansas has not gone for a presidential loser since 1968. Harrelson narrows it further: "You won't hear this on Meet the Press, but as Logan and Van Buren counties go, so goes the nation." Our Q & A with Steve from December 2007 is here.

T. Boone talks to bloggers

Here is the archived call T. Boone Pickens did with bloggers on his energy plan. He speaks convincingly about the use of his Web site in this effort. This kind of thing is just easier and easier. We are now on the hunt for examples in the public sector -- outside campaigns or Congress.

All the rage: The future of Republicans on the Web

So the new organizing mantra: The reason Republicans are out-Interneted by Obama and Daily Kos, etc., is (wait for it) they are insufficiently angry. The Atlantic Monthly's Planting the Right Roots searches for the conservative Joe Trippi, considers the attraction of "geek chic" and pronounces "outrage as the logistical backbone of any political movement."

So there you have it: Parity and power online will be achieved by assembling more rage, or at least rage more efficiently packaged, mashed up, shared, and delivered to your cellphone every 90 minutes. Or something. This is what all this elegant technology is finally all about? Not to mention: This is what conservatives need to hear? That is, since learning recently that The Atlantic Monthly actually may not have their best interests at heart?

Somewhere out there, I am certain, an idealist or two is reading such demoralizing nonsense and saying to him or herself: There must be a better idea.

Note to McCain campaign Web site: Buy a calendar

At mid-afternoon today, a visitor to JohnMcCain.com finds a large graphic with this: "Tonight Governor Palin proved beyond any doubt that she is ready to lead as vice president of the United States." Which may be true. Except that IT'S TODAY ALREADY, and "tonight" is ... last night. We have seen this before here, and too often it seems that the Web just moves too fast for these people. Which turns off many younger and Internet-savvy voters, who pay attention.

Add to this the fact that the campaign's McCain Report blog, usually sharp and smart, often goes hours and hours with no updates.

This is baffling. It's October, people.

Update: A day later, the graphic is still there, re-worded, with the reference to "tonight" removed.

House members stay busy on Twitter and YouTube during bailout vote

Scanning Tweets by House members during the vote on the bailout, which went down minutes ago by a vote of 228 to 205, we came across this from Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra:

They didn't have votes when they started. What poor leadership.They need to announce we're back here Wednesday to continue working.

Lots of info in those 140 characters, eh?

Also tweeting is Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake, who noted during the floor debate that he was just moments away from speaking. Immediately after the vote, his staff tweeted that they had Flake's floor speech already up on YouTube.

Update: Twitter users in Congress missing in action during the debate: formerly busy tweeters Tim Ryan and Roy Blunt. Staying active: John Culberson, with plenty of direct replies to fellow tweeters. But perhaps the least engaging use of Twitter we have seen by a politician yet is here.

And here is a list of all Twittering members of Congress, via Congresspedia. Hat tip: David All.

Update II: Here is All on how some enthusiastic use of Twitter could help the McCain campaign.

Palin email hacker's father's Tennessee State House blogging colleague: Don't blame the dad!

Didja' get that? Blogging Tennessee state legislator Stacey Campfield, a FOM (Friend of Municipalist) and perpetually entertaining but always bluntly honest, offers a kind word to Rep. Mike Kernell, father of admitted Sarah Palin email thief David Kernell. "Although I do not agree on many issues with Mike, he is a free thinker and that sort of thing is not his style at all," Campfield writes. Good story and video here from KnoxvilleNews.com. Stealing emails is a serious crime, but many in the MSM are calling this a 'prank.'

We rigorously and ruthlessly questioned Campfield last year, and have made regularly checking in with him a priority.

Update: Campfield tells us: "When it came out it spread like wild fire through the legislature. Most people would agree Mike is supporting his son right or wrong as many parents would in similar scenario. The kid did a dumb thing. He may end up paying for it for a long time.  I am sure Mike is as twisted up on this as any parent would be."

Our point is, here is a very partisan blogger being ... kind, to an opponent across the aisle.

So it's possible.

Hacking Sarah Palin's email account

More proof that WikiMedia is somehow a partisan, anti-Republican organization? No! It turns out that WikiLeaks, the publisher of the emails stolen from Alask Gov. Sarah Palin has nothing at all to do with WikiPedia, at least according to this. The WikiLeaks Web site is down, as of this moment, but screen shots from Palin's stolen emails are plentiful across the Web. Be our guest. We look forward to the quick condemnation of this from the National Governors Association. Hmmm. Nothing up on the NGA site about this yet. Shocking. Here is Yahoo's corporate blog on this, except Yahoo does not mention Palin by name. One theory we have yet to hear on the biased coverage of this: That somebody within Yahoo leaked Palin's sign-in info. Why do we think this should be considered? Find a McCain-Palin supporter who works for Yahoo. Win a prize.

Also: Here is a stunningly fair and bipartisan site that tracks down the truth about Internet rumors, on Palin and on all players in the presidential campaign. FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Meghan McCain and how to blog to millenials

Here is a mostly negative piece today from Slate on Meghan McCain, John McCain's 23-year-old blogging daughter. Here is a better post from Slate's The XX Factor blog from February, discussing how Meghan's blog gets its tone absolutely right:

Chelsea [Clinton] is making phone calls and giving speeches (kinda boring ones ... ). Meanwhile, John McCain's daughter is telling us that "Riding on the plane for 5 hours to San Diego felt like: Rufus Wainwright's ‘Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk (Reprise),' " and "Having such a rockin' Super Tuesday felt like: Michael Jackson's ‘Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough.' " She intersperses photos of rallies and campagin stops with goofy pictures from her travels and talks about her love of fashion and going to In-and-Out burger. The clear message is that she's an otherwise normal twentysomething who loves her dad and thinks he will be a great president—there's so much visible warmth and enthusiasm. She's reaching out to young voters without making it seem like work.

There is no instruction book for how to create a quality family-member presidential campaign blog. Watching Meghan McCain figure it out and gain some kudos has been interesting.

Does Obama's Web site encourage media bullying?

Is this corner of the Barack Obama Web site a good idea? It's part of a large email effort run by the campaign that encourages Obama supporters to call in to radio shows when they host anti-Obama guests.  This page is aimed at the Sept. 15 show on WGN radio with David Freddoso, author of The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate. The site is part of the "Obama Action Wire." The page provides talking points and includes this tip: "Be honest, but be civil." On Aug. 27, that was forgotten, during a show featuring conservative writer Stanley Kurtz focusing on Obama's relationship to terrorist William Ayers, according to NRO Media Blog, which reported that callers jammed the station lines and did their best to rant and generally misbehave.

The overwhelming message was clear: The interview must be put to an end immediately, and the station management should prevent similar discussions from taking place.

One female caller, when pressed about what precisely she objected to, simply replied, "We just want it to stop!"

... Throughout the open-line segments, Rosenberg and Kurtz wore incredulous expressions. The hostile callers were so bereft of any legitimate argument, there was little to do but sit back and marvel at what was going on.

The experience was surreal, amusing, and chilling. In a matter of hours, a major national campaign had called on its legions to bully a radio show out of airing an interview with a legitimate scholar asking legitimate political questions. 

Audio of that Aug. 27 show is here. The Sept. 15 show was apparently deja vu.

NRO is National Review, a conservative publication. But this is beyond the pale. As the McCain campaign targets and blames the media for whatever problems it has any given day and regularly catches hell for doing so, these tactics from the Obama campaign are just as odious.

The Obama Web page encourages those who call in to report back. The campaign then uses their tales in subsequent triumphant emails. So, questions: Will such use of a campaign Web site and of supporter email lists to successfully harrass the media be increasingly seen as effective and even necessary for campaigns to come? How does all of this factor into how the Obama administration will supposedly teach the government how to blog, and of the resultant fawning media coverage of that claim? Is this what Obama has in mind?

Has Obama figured out how to make the McCain computer illiteracy claim matter?

[See several updates at end of post.] So now the Obama campaign has for the first time inserted into an ad charges that John McCain's admitted computer illiteracy matter. The ad is here. Notice how it slides together these phrases: "He admits he doesn't know how to use a computer. Can't send an email. Still doesn't understand the economy. And favors $200 billion in tax cuts for corporations."

So the claim is, really, that an inability to understand the obsessional device for the millenial generation really is a huge deficit for a presidential candidate, because it reveals a tendency to lack expertise in other areas too, such as the economy. Computers are certainly cool toys for older generations too, but making that claim -- that a lack of computer expertise alone should disqualify you for president -- does not stick to anybody older than 25, in our view, unless you do it the way the Obama campaign did it, as a link to larger.

Does any of this computer literacy stuff matter?

MSNBC's First Read blog wonders, quoting Obama campaign manager David Plouffe: " 'We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain’s attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people.' That begs the question, though: Is McCain’s computer literacy a 'big' issue in this election?"

And here is Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer, with more linkage: "Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one of our most serious national security threats," Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail." So the linkage there is to 'national security threats.' But will any of this stick? One commenter to First Read answers:

"I wish I could attend a town hall with these candidates where I could ask them this question: 'Senators, every day my television is filled with ads focused on lipstick, wolves, Senator McCain's computer skills, or Senator Obama's preacher, instead of telling me how you are going to fix the economy, rebuild the military, fix the health care system, fix the educational system, and protect America. Senator McCain and Senator Obama--Why do you keep approving these crappy messages?' "

Update: For McCain, perhaps it is not too late. Here is Slate on what happens when geezers go online.

Update 9/14/08: Here is Jake Tapper from ABC:

Assuredly McCain isn't comfortable talking about this -- and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this -- but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn't use a computer or send e-mail is because of his war wounds.

I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again "playing the POW card," but it's simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically. He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general, the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones that make it impossible for him to raise his arms high enough to comb his hair -- mean that small tasks make his shoulders ache, so he tries to avoid any repetitive exercise.

Again, it's not that he can't type, he just by habit, avoids when he can, repetitive exercise involving his arms. He does if he has to, as with handshaking or autographs.

Update 9/15/08: Here is the Boston Globe from 2000: "McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes." Over to you, Barack. And here is McCain discussing his non-use of email and the Internet, very matter-of-factly, among other topics, in an interview with the New York Times from July 13, 2008, two months before the Obama campaign ad. The section where McCain addresses these issues begins about 2/3 of the way down.

The McCain plagiarism tale and the Palin faux pregnancy rumors: How anonymous partisans exploit established Web brands for political ends

[See multiple updates at end of this post.]

Synopsis: We were approached recently by someone claiming to be the Wikipedia editor who made the initial anonymous charge to another blogger that the McCain campaign plagiarized material from Wikipedia for use in a speech during the initial days of Russia's invasion of Georgia. This person clearly wanted more attention, and pitched the idea of our publishing a Q & A with him on Municipalist about all of this.

We pushed this person to agree to go on the record with his real name. He declined, in cloak-and-dagger fashion, implying he was fearful for his personal safety, should his identity be revealed.

So we passed. For now.

Why this all matters: Examples out there of this type of tactic -- anonymous posts and pitches aimed at political and partisan ends, with the leaker escaping any scrutiny as to motivation -- are becoming more frequent, and they are effective.

On Sept. 2, Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Washington Post, laid out the most recent example:

The intensity of media inquiries hit a new level after an anonymous blogger on the liberal Web site Daily Kos last weekend charged that McCain's running mate is actually the grandmother of Trig Palin, the 4-month-old baby born with Down syndrome, and that the real mother is her daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin. That led to mainstream media inquiries, which prompted the McCain camp to disclose in a statement Monday that Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to have the baby and marry the teenage father. The site's founder, Markos Moulitsas, said he did not know the contributor's identity but thought that the admittedly "weird" pregnancy questions were a legitimate line of inquiry that he should not suppress.

Of course, Kos did suppress a diarist at his site blogging about the then odd lack of interest by mainstream media in John Edwards's obvious evasions and lies about his affair, before it was admitted to publically. But Kurtz's magic words: "That led to mainstream media inquiries." So: Such behavior from these various cloaked individuals, protected from any criticism, can so easily start news wildfires, as occurred with both the McCain campaign plagiarism charges and the bizarre Sarah Palin pregnancy story.

And while Kos continues to influence much of the clueless and/or partisan mainstream media [as it did in effectively delaying the Edwards story], this presidential campaign has marked the arrival of a new and perhaps larger player in such matters: Wikipedia. From inside or outside. One example: The Washington Post reports on how monitoring Wikipedia edits turned out to be a useful method of predicting John McCain's VP choice.

If individual [or group] blogs can play large roles in breaking such partisan-driven stories, what is the potential for Wikipedia, with its vast collection of impressive content and large, obsessive community? What if any of that content and/or community could be harnessed for partisan ends?

Municipalist has followed the McCain plagiarism story, and even played a very minor role in advancing it. Our personal experience with that story illustrates our case. So, moment by moment, here is our tale, in excruciating detail:

McCain campaign's search term bidding strategy: Is it a winner?

The campaigns have differing views on the value of this story from the Wall Street Journal, on how the McCain campaign is more aggressive and more effective at buying rights to key online search terms. The Obama campaign's reply is this is not a big deal, given the success of that campaign's grassroots Web strategy. Who is right?

Sarah Palin's daughter, the mainstream media, and the blogosphere

[See update at end of this post convincingly refuting our entire argument.] Wonder why so many in government and corporate America see blogging as behavior to be loathed, feared, and avoided at all costs? To learn why, consider the Sarah Palin pregnant daughter story.

On "Morning Joe" this morning, NBC's David Gregory informed host Joe Scarborough that Gregory's mother was 18 when he was born. This odd tidbit was dropped into a discussion among several big-time media players about the behavior of the mainstream media and many in the 'blogosphere,' particularly Daily Kos. Kos, and others, pushed for the outing of this story, offering rumors that Palin's baby born a few months ago was in fact her daughter's baby. The same daughter. Who is pregnant now.

Following this?

Those throughout the public sector, the group we are concerned with here at Municipalist, must look at this and wonder: This is what blogging is all about? Slinging around all this paranoia, impossible conspiracy theories, and partisan attacks?

Those outside the groundswell need to be invited on in. Peering through the window, to many it must all look like a giant pie fight. So why bother?

The new creed: We will no longer tout the benefits of joining the 'blogosphere.' There are no answers there, for those seeking serious engagement with constituents, customers, friends or foes. Instead, we say the answer is in fact found in creating a new way of thinking about blogging completely outside that quickly aging construct of so much prattle and poison. We will be pursuing this in the days ahead. Stay tuned.

Update: Turns out I am totally wrong! Mickey Kaus of Slate offers a strong rebuttal [see his Sept. 1 post]:

Note to Cass Sunstein and internet alarmists who argue that the Web results in partisans who listen only to their own facts, reinforcing their extreme opinions, etc.: A Daily Kos blogger is refuting the Kos-fueled Palin-baby rumor with a photo found on right-wing site Free Republic, of all places. Moral: The Web encourages cocooning but (unlike other cocoon-generators like cable TV, or gerrymandered congressional districts) it's also the solvent of cocooning, as a) bloggers actually read the web sites of the other side, in order to attack them; b) bloggers defend themselves against such attacks; and c) the Web makes learning from the other side extremely easy. ... In this case, viciously partisan Kos bloggers seem to have investigated and knocked down a bit of undernews that many of them would have dearly liked to be true. What's wrong with that? As of this writing, it looks like they got to the truth pretty rapidly.

Well, not that rapidly. The point is not how fast the truth was gotten to. The point is that this story -- an utterly impossible tale, by the way -- is actually taken seriously. By adults. That is a concern.

Update II: Michael Calderone from Politico on: Did Kos try to hide the evidence?

Update III: We wrote more about this topic here.

Palin and e-government: 'She is a trailblazer'

More clues about Gov. Sarah Palin's knowledge and interest in government use of the Web, from anti-tax activist Grover Norquist in the Washington Post:

She is a trailblazer in the fight for financial transparency in government, posting her state's spending on the Internet.

From the state of Alaska official Web site, here is the explanation of what the state is doing.

Sarah Palin's Facebook page commenters: 'We love her'

Among the more enthusiastic:

My daughter, who is four, is already calling her a hero! Of course she has watched me dance around the living room, shouting with joy this morning!

And:

the future VP and (eventually) future first female President of the US.

Palin has a degree in journalism. Will voters pull the lever for her anyway? ... And: That background makes it seem she would be a natural blogger. She could be the first on a national campaign to give it a try.

Here is a very effective YouTube video posted by one of the Palin-for-VP efforts.

Update: More from Municipalist about Palin: Palin likes e-government; Palin, the media, the blogosphere;  How anonymous partisans exploited well-known Web brands to push both the Palin faux pregnancy story and the McCain plagiarism charges.

Joe Biden on the social Web

Comment from a reader of Biden's Facebook page, time-stamped at 8:27 p.m.: "ABC is reporting that Biden just got Secret Service protection." Pretty good clue, eh? Biden does have a blog on MySpace. Last update: Dec. 26, 2007. Biden has a Flickr page, and a fancy YouTube page. Biden's campaign site offers lots of RSS links too, including one for his op-eds. [Here is a recent Biden op-ed on the Russia-Georgia war.] No blog on the Biden offical .gov Senate site.
 

The battle of the instant Web communities

The Republican National Committee launched ObamaRezkoShadyDeal.com this afternoon, aimed at providing "videos and the latest news pertaining to Barack Obama's lack of judgment and questionable dealings with campaign fundraiser and convicted felon Tony Rezko." Also on the instant community-creation beat: Regardless of whom Barack Obama chooses as his running mate, some in the "netroots" world -- meaning various lefty Web communities who since 2004 have developed plenty of clout in the Democratic Party -- have announced it better not be Indiana Senator Birch Bayh.  They have set up a Facebook page titled "100,000 strong against Evan Bayh for VP," reports the Huffington Post. But the group, as of Monday, had not hit 4,000 members.

Regardless, some members are claiming to have influenced the choice anyway, just by all the attention the effort received. Just what direct or even indirect impact that will have on Obama remains to be seen. But the fact that such single-issue communities can be created in such lightning speed is a huge change in politics. And there is no going back.

Update: Of course, calling the RNC site a "community" could be a stretch. It is not a community by itself, but rather a package of stuff, useful to plenty of individuals, media, advocacy groups, partisans, bloggers, etc., as a source for content on the issue at hand. The Facebook site, however, obviously is a more traditional "community." The contrast in strategies here is clear.

N.C. politicos answer for Municipalist: Elizabeth Edwards posting at Kos a good idea?

'As for asking a wife to stand up for a philandering candidate/husband after the fact -- I'd be afraid she'd shoot me.' Carter Wrenn and Gary Pearce are long-time North Carolina political advisers. Their team blog has gotten national attention lately analyzing corners of the John Edwards immolation. Pearce, the Democrat, was a consultant on strategy and media for Edwards' 1998 Senate campaign. Wrenn, the Republican, worked alongside Jesse Helms. They answered questions by email from Municipalist about how Team Edwards used the Internet, and, helpfully, we color-coded their names for added reader convenience:

What is your view of Elizabeth Edwards' decision to go to a liberal Web site, Daily Kos, to deliver her statement to the world on her husband's affair?

Carter Wrenn: Well, I guess from her point of view that beats making a statement where pesky reporters can ask questions.
Gary Pearce: Normally, posting on a blog is a good thing to do.  You get to deliver your message just as you want to.

In campaigns you ran or would run, would either of you ever encourage a philandering candidate (or potential VP, attorney general, etc.) to ask his wife to do something like that?

Carter Wrenn: Best advice for a candidate for President with a secret blond in the closet is forget about it. It is bound to come out. As for asking a wife to stand up for a philandering candidate/husband after the fact -- I'd be afraid she'd shoot me.
Gary Pearce: I would encourage a philandering candidate to either not run or, if they do run, come totally clean from the start. And the candidate, not his or her spouse, should do the explaining and commenting.

[But, otherwise] is it a good idea for candidates to develop relationships with friendly bloggers, to be called upon times of need?

Carter Wrenn: Definitely. Same as with reporters. And I'll go further -- candidates ought to post on blogs.
Gary Pearce: Absolutely. You need all the friends you can get in politics.

'McCain's campaign doesn't text'

That's from this Washington Post profile today of Obama's Web team showing the wide disparity between it and McCain's operation when it comes to strategic deployment of social media and user-generated content. Among the many defining moments:

Then as the primaries and caucuses neared, what [Scott] Goodstein calls "a big experiment" started paying off. One Sunday afternoon in early December, minutes before Oprah Winfrey and Obama addressed about 29,000 people at a rally in Columbia, S.C., Jeremy Bird, Obama's state field director, asked the crowd to take out their cellphones and text "SC" to 62262, Obama's short code. The code spells "Obama" on phones.

In the following weeks, Goodstein sent texts to the numbers he'd collected and asked supporters to make phone calls, volunteer in precincts and vote on Jan. 26 in South Carolina. Obama won that state by 28 points.

The campaign launched Obama Mobile, where users can access news and download videos for their cellphones, a first for a campaign. And though the campaign has set up sections at all top "SocNet" sites, the goal is always to drive traffic to the campaign's own site. And there are videos all over the net, drawing millions of viewers.

The question we will have to wait for November to answer: Is this just a millenial thing, or a prototype presidential campaign winning strategy?

Update: Reliance on technology from campaigns such as texting can be problematic, as Politico's Ben Smith reports.

Is McCain's blogger on the same page as campaign honchos?

As the fallout from the "cone of silence" continues, ABC's Jake Tapper raises a valid issue, for all campaigns: "The McCain campaign's vitriol against NBC's Andrea Mitchell is odder still when you consider that the McCain campaign's blogger Michael Goldfarb was quoting her very same reporting approvingly as evidence that the Obama campaign was a bunch of whiners."

This is a crucial question. How do campaigns make this work? Maybe daughter blogger Meghan McCain can provide some answers tonight when she shows up on Anderson Cooper's show.

And Michael Goldfarb replies to Tapper here. Convincingly.

McCain Wikipedia 'plagiarism' claims fade

CQ's Political Insider links back.

And Andrew Romano of Newsweek's Stumper blog has words of wisdom:

Most likely, some young speechwriter assigned to cook up the necessary grafs familiarized himself with an unfamiliar country on Wikipedia and then failed to excise every last trace of the encyclopedia entry in his finished product--which, after all, didn't regurgitate entire sentences or original ideas, but merely an historical chronology. That shouldn't reflect poorly on a candidate, who, like all of his political peers, simply doesn't have the time to write his own daily remarks.

Sounds about right to us.

How Elizabeth Edwards found her New Man

In a previous post, Municipalist asked: How do we rate Team Edwards' use of the Internet, in an effort to manage this scandal? And now we have at least one answer: It is never a bad idea to cultivate a relationship with partisan bloggers who are down with your agenda, whom you will hope come to your aid in your hour of need.

A blog at the Los Angeles Times offers the tale of Lee Stranahan, a liberal blogger banned from Daily Kos because he insisted on writing about the Edwards affair. Then:

The no-Edwards-affair strategy earned the site the trust of Elizabeth Edwards, at least: after Edwards confessed, Elizabeth Edwards chose Daily Kos as the place to post her statement asking for privacy. After that Kos himself posted a diary in which he thanked his users for holding back on the Edwards story: "It's actually you guys who have created and nurtured this incredible community, one that made it easier for one of the most amazing people on this planet to deal with the roughest of times" he wrote.

So: The act of air-brushing Lee Stranahan out of the picture is one way we nurture "this incredidible community." But really it's how we suck up to the lawyer's lawyer wife, to gain a scoop on the world. And how we partisans stick together. What is not clear is: Did Elizabeth Edwards have any direct contact with Kos before Kos banned Stranahan? We will never know.

But we do know that the site's "no-Edwards-affair-strategy" was only the latest little valentine to pass between Liz and Kos. This is from Elizabeth's post at her Kos diary from May 22, 2007:

John is first to have his bags packed for Chicago and YearlyKos. The decision was easy: the opportunity to talk, to listen, to question and to learn from the people who make online the center of real political dialogue that YearlyKos offers is important. Unparalleled, really. And so John will be there, there with you.

And here is one of the first comments to that post:

Frankly Elizabeth, you are too good for everything you are subjected to--too decent, too brave, too elegant. Be strong, we are always here for you. Always.

So Elizabeth knew that this was the place to go. And by May 2007, according to John Edwards' timeline, it seemed that she knew there may well be a time coming soon when media friends would have to be called on. Look at her effectiveness at getting the mainstream media to ignore this story for months.

Read the comments following the LA Times post. Lee Stranahan's blog is here.

Also: Here is a nice photo of a pack of Daily Kosers at the Edwards campaign announcement in New Orleans.

Update: Elizabeth Edwards also blurbs the new book by Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, official release date: Aug. 20, 2008.

And Elizabeth Edwards: Not so amazing.

More serial denial from the mainstream media revealed by Michael Getler, ombudsman for PBS. Here is a worthy read from New Republic on all this, with a breathless account of the hotel stakeout.

Hat tip: Kausfiles  and Deceiver.

Wikimedia Foundation replies to Municipalist questions on McCain plagiarism charges

[Update: We develop this further here.]

D.C.-based Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Dan Rosenthal responds to questions from Municipalist about the suggestion that John McCain's speech writers may have "plagiarized" from Wikipedia some material about Georgia and its history. "A Wikipedia editor" makes the charge.

The comments following the initial post at CQ's Political Insider blog are worthy reading. One asks: Can anybody plagiarize facts? And here is a follow-up post, with links to responses from the blogosphere and some mainstream media. Here is the speech. Rosenthal addressed our emailed questions in one reply, but we break them up here:

Municipalist: What is Wikipedia policy on use of its content?

Rosenthal: Wikimedia's policy on use of its content is one of freedom. First, let me note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not own the article content on our projects; the individual authors who write it do. All of their contributions are licensed under the GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License), which to summarize allows free reuse, commercially or otherwise, as long as the reuser attributes the preceding authors. It's slightly more complicated than that, but that's the gist of what's important to this question.

So, Sen. McCain, or Sen. Obama, or any other person is more than welcome to use content found on our projects, as long as it is properly attributed. Now, obviously when giving a speech that quotes a line or two from an article, or using a word or two from another source, there's a different story, and there is potentially a fair use argument to be made. That being said, however, in the vast majority of instances we require attribution to the authors of the content.

Keep in mind that we have been saying repeatedly that Wikipedia should not be used as a primary source of information, and people using Wikipedia for research should always verify their information elsewhere.

Municipalist: Apparently a Wikipedia editor emailed this charge to a member of the media. How does Wikipedia feel about this behavior of one of its own?

Rosenthal: There's very little to say. What people do outside of the project is their own business.

Municipalist: If journalists are free to "use" Wikipedia content, why not campaigns?

Rosenthal: Journalists and campaigns are free to use Wikipedia content. Advertisement campaigns have been using our content; why wouldn't a presidential campaign? Now, with that being said, just because they are free to use our content does not mean that it is necessarily a good idea. A presidential candidate and his campaign have significant amounts of staffer time and money invested into research and briefing, and I would sincerely hope that they are able to use Wikipedia responsibly and verify their sources and citations, rather than citing directly to Wikipedia (which is something that we discourage in grade school students, let alone campaigns).

Municipalist: Does Wikipedia care about this?

Rosenthal: Again it is hard to say because the term "Wikipedia" can have different meaning. If you mean the project itself, obviously the answer is no because software cannot care. If you mean the contributors and editors to the project, there has been some discussion about it, but the general response has been pretty apathetic. If you mean the Wikimedia Foundation, there has been very little internal discussion regarding the issue.

In closing, I hope the McCain campaign learns from this, as well as any campaign, organization or person who wants to use content from Wikipedia. Please do so responsibly, make sure your sources are cited, provide proper attribution, and try to use Wikipedia to dig deeper for content beyond just our articles. Doing so will go a long way toward preventing issues like this in the future.

Update: After the initial post, we emailed Rosenthal a follow-up: How does Wikimedia Foundation feel about the overall charge here? Meaning, plagiarism or rights infringement or whatever -- whenever it actually occurs. Regardless of whether it occurred here. Is use of Wikipedia content minus proper attribution a concern for you at all, and do you plan any response to it, educating users, suing, etc.?

Rosenthal: I don't think the Foundation actually has any real feelings about the charge, since there's not a whole lot of solid information at this point. We obviously do not at all support plagiarism when it does in fact occur. Attribution is one of the major keys to our encyclopedia, both for licensing reasons, and because it helps tell the story of the development of an article, as well as gives our contributors a sense of real authorship, so they can say "look what I have helped create." When attribution is taken away, it generally hurts our contributors. So while use of our content minus attribution is a concern for us, and it has been something that has been internally discussed, and sometimes is discussed at outreach events such as Wikimeetups, and Wikimedia Academies, I am not aware of any planned responses at this point in time.

[Calling Internet lawyers: Creative Commons License ruling handing down yesterday.]

[Hat tip: Politico blogger Ben Smith's essential daily remainders.]

Obama: When I know, you'll know

Barack Obama wants to text you the name of his VP selection, the moment it occurs. We like this for what is says symbolically about the candidate's awareness of the increasing relevance of the new media world. Are there any state or local candidates or elected officials doing anything like this? They should be, no?

Edwards' blogger pal has photos

The story that keeps on giving: More Web-related angles to the Edwards tale continue to emerge. The latest is that blogger Robert Scoble -- one of the top thinkers, authors, and bloggers about the social media world -- has photos from the campaign near the very end of 2006 that seem to contradict the Edwards timeline.

Will campaign press advisors now either invite along fewer friendly bloggers on the campaign plane, or at least make them put away their cameras? The blogosphere: Scaring the mainstream media to death day after day.

The John Edwards saga: The New Era has arrived

"In the end, the much-derided MSM were superfluous, their monopoly a faded memory. People have hundreds of ways to obtain information in today's instantaneous media culture, and are capable of reaching their own conclusions about what is reliable and what is not." That's Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post.

Amongn the reasons Municipalist is interested in this story is its relevance to how those throughout the public sector -- or running campaigns for public office -- make use of the Internet to interract with the rest of us. From the self-regarding Edwards campaign videos posted on YouTube, to Elizabeth Edwards' decision to blog about this on Daily Kos, to the still-present but apparently abandoned JohnEdwards.com, to the larger point referenced by Kurtz -- that the mainstream media is but a distraction to more and more information consumers these days. (But not to all. Some friends of mine were shocked when I told them about a week ago that I was following this daily on the Internet. They knew nothing about it.)

And the questions keep coming. How do we rate Team Edwards' use of the Internet? Did they at any point during the last couple of weeks reach out to friendly blogs, Kos, etc., seeking assistance or cover? Another factor: the overlooked value of the Commentocracy. This is a rare instance in which I want to read comments, at several blogs and at a couple mainstream media sites as well, because I am learning a lot.

The fact this story did not get out in a big way until just last week has consequences that are just now being understood. And there is plenty of denial out there. Still.

Elizabeth Edwards heads to Daily Kos to tell her story

Elizabeth Edwards has taken to Daily Kos.

What is really interesting here are the comments. Lots of sympathy, praise, etc. They are why she went to Kos.

Sending your wife out to a friendly blog site to defend you: Just a stunning way to do business.

Should we start a new category here for blogging campaign spouses?

[We update here.]

Edwards: 'I didn't love her.'

So that makes it ok, right? Apparently, if Edwards' explanation denying paternity is to be believed, the pizza wasn't the only thing that got passed around inside that campaign. ABC News has the goods. Sort of. Many issues remain, of course. Like this one from Slate's Mickey Kaus: "Obvious question: Why visit Hunter in the early morning hours if he does 'not love her' and is not her child's father?"

The appalling behavior of the mainstream media throughout the last two weeks is a big story as well. Tom Bemis from Marketwatch calls it "self censorship." The Charlotte Observer, leading the way among the middle-tier media -- and a publication I am proud to say I have contributed to -- lays it out here, and in a blog here, though for some reason still seems in denial, and feels the need to mention a local Republican had an affair years ago. Just fascinating to watch, really.

Can't wait for the New York Times on this. Calling Maureen Dowd: It's OK to come out from the tall grass now!

[Update from the next day: Here she is.]