The Campaign Blog Frontier

As a blogger and self-appointed “Netroots Coordinator” for senatorial candidate John Spencer, R-N.Y., Bob Fois has become the very online persona he hates—the originator of the hundreds of emails that fill in the in-boxes of New Yorkers each day. “I never thought I’d grow up to be a spammer,” Fois said. “I’m not really a spammer, but there are times when you think, ‘How are people gonna react to this?’”  

So it’s no surprise that even before leaving his Eastchester home to pick up a steaming cup of coffee from a nearby Dunkin Donuts, Fois spends his waking hours reading news feeds and calling the top officials in the campaign to coordinate the day’s message.  

“I’m a newshound early in the morning,” Fois said. “I start the morning reading all the wire services; the websites of other campaigns; news in Washington, Albany and New York City; and local outlets throughout the state. That’s before I even start throwing ideas around [on the phone] with the campaign manager and communications manager.”  

But in the wake of the technological success stories of Democrats John Kerry, Howard Dean and Ned Lamont, bloggers and Netroots coordinators—a portmanteau of the words “Internet” and “grassroots” that means tech-savvy grassroots coordinators—have become one of the newest additions to the political campaign arsenal. Used as a catch-all resource for rallying constituents, in-house campaign bloggers are changing the traditional hierarchy of a campaign and the way grassroots politics are handled.  

“Political operations have truly become virtual,” Fois said. “You don’t need everyone in the same office to run a campaign. The idea of having a campaign location on Main Street [has changed]—now every street is Main Street.”  

Nevertheless, Spencer remains one of the very few New York candidates running a proper blog with comments enabled. According to a recent survey by the Washington PR agency The Bivings Group, the virtual campaign is on the rise: leading up to the 2006 Senate races, challengers used more sophisticated Internet tools than incumbents, Democrats used RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds more than Republicans and only 23 percent of candidates had blogs on their websites.   

Fois said challengers are likely to use more advanced technology than incumbents to overcome the incumbents’ advantage.  

“If you’re in a race that’s neck and neck, there are going to be blogs that will tip the scales,” Fois said. “[Having a blog] has been a wonderful morale boost for the Republican Party.”  

On the other hand, a blog may not pull in enough votes to make a difference, and it can equally be a drawback to a candidate’s image if not managed correctly, especially an incumbent’s, said Haley Plourde-Cole, the assistant secretary and webmaster for the Sean Maloney campaign for New York Attorney General.  

Kate Phillips, political editor of NYTimes.com and writer for The New York Times blog The Caucus, said that blogs have truly proliferated among politicians, no matter who the frontrunner is.  

“It is true that politicians are staffing up with bloggers or savvy online thinkers, à la Hillary Clinton's hiring of [Salon.com writer] Peter Daou,” Phillips said. “And frankly, some incumbents have blogs, like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who was not afraid to title his, ‘giveemhellharry.com.’ He is a former boxer after all.”  

However, despite the increasing use of blogs by campaigns, Phillips said the way many campaigns manage their blogs detracts from the experience—losing sight of what a blog is really about.  

“I would agree with many others that too many staff aides and consultants are sanitizing or even writing the blog entries themselves, just as they have for so many years diluted their bosses’ op-ed pieces by over-writing and cleansing them of any emotion or possibly controversial notion,” Phillips said. “Heaven forbid they should come across as human.”  

Recognizing the tug-of-war between activist blogs and true discussion, Fois said he researches extensively before publishing each post on the blog. With Spencer’s blessing, Fois said he also allows almost every comment to be published on the blog, with only vulgar and incoherent comments as exceptions.  

“As a moderator, I’m not going to start censoring comments,” Fois said. “Even if it’s a criticism to John, they’ll stay. There’s nothing wrong with negative commentary because it brings [reaction] from the other side. You’re not supposed to make it immune and bland. You’re supposed to make it interesting.”  

Fois said the benefits of a blog depend on in amount of resources and authenticity a campaign dedicates to the effort.  

“I think [some candidates] like the genie, but they want it in the bottle where they can control it,” Fois said. “It’s too much chaos for them to consider. If you’re running a blog but you’re not really running commentary, you’re not really running a blog.”  

At the end of the day, the blogger is “an integral cog in the wheel” of a campaign, and candidates who utilize them well are poised to reap the benefits, Fois said.  

“The writer and the researcher in American politics are extremely valuable, and I’m filling that role,” Fois said. “Do we hit it right every time? Absolutely not. But are we trying? Absolutely.”