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Progressive Blogosphere Reaction to Marcotte Resignation
By Lowell | February 13, 2007
Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon has announced her resignation from the Edwards campaign, under relentless harassement by what she calls “Bill Donohue and his calvacade of right wing shills.” Heres’s a sampling of reaction in the liberal/progressive/Democratic blogosphere:
*The Agonist calls it “A Loss,” writing that “The Edwards campaign will be seen to have buckled under to pressure in this case and therefore Edwards looks weak.” The Agonists adds, “This will also make it much harder for bloggers moving to campaigns or other high profile positions in the future, since a precedent has been set.”
*Taylor Marsh writes that “this one hurts Edwards.” Marsh adds:
He screwed up and so did whoever is in charge of managing his online campaign. I know everyone has a tendency to huddle together and hope this all goes away or spin the reality, but I just can’t see this any other way.
*Booman Tribune writes that “it hurts to see an homophobic anti-Semite like Donahue get himself another scalp,” and worries that “It just encourages him.”
*MyDD’s Matt Stoller writes, ” Bill Donohue’s attack on Edwards failed, and we know that creepy bigots like him only have power if we grant it to them through our own actions.”
*David of BlueMass advises that “If you’re blogging for a candidate, there’s nothing you can say on your own blog that is anything but a liability for your candidate, so you’re just hurting the person you presumably want to win.”
*“Mikey” at Daily Kos raises three possibilities for why Marcotte resigned (”face value,” part of “The Plan,” “Edwards changed his mind.”)
*Finally, this one’s from the MSM, not from a progressive blog, but Chris Cillizza at his Washington Post blog opines:
..how campaigns integrate the unfiltered world of blogging into the more traditional-minded world of running a national campaign is very much a work in progress. The lesson here is that message control in the new media landscape is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.
Personally, as I write over at Raising Kaine, I agree that it’s difficult (not “impossible,” though), for bloggers to work on campaigns while maintaining discipline and “message control.” However, it also seems to me that campaign bloggers are paid staffers (as I was on the Webb campaign) like everyone else, and should be clearly told by campaigns what is expected of them, what they are supposed to be writing about, etc. And, of course, campaigns need to look at a bloggers’ past writing BEFORE hiring them. In this case, that wasn’t done, apparently.
- Lowell
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February 13th, 2007 at 6:20 am
[…] One or two opinions via Memeorandom: The Moderate Voice, QandO, The Agonist, Outside The Beltway, Taylor Marsh, The Sideshow, Decision ‘08, Vox Popoli, MyDD, culturekitchen, Ace of Spades HQ, The Reaction, The American Street, The Political Pit Bull, Lonewacko, The Carpetbagger Report, Wizbang, Andrew Olmsted dot com, Liberal Values, The Caucus, Eunomia, Heading Left, Reason Magazine, Stop The ACLU, The Fix, The Bullwinkle Blog, Happy Furry Puppy Story …, UrbanGrounds, Booman Tribune, politburo diktat 2.0, The Corner, World-O-Crap, Slog, Bill’s Bites and Pam’s House Blend […]
February 28th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Very nice site! Good work.