Bloggers Influencing Capitol Hill?
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James Joyner | Thursday, January 18, 2007 |
Rob Bluey explains “How bloggers took on Harry Reid and won on earmark reform.”
That Congressional leadership is listening to bloggers is interesting, as is the increasing outreach by Members to the blogosphere. What’s more remarkable than either of those, though, is that bloggers are sufficiently focused on such wonky issues as “earmark reform” at all. That’s the kind of inside baseball politics that has generally been ignored.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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James, you are a blogger blogging in the blogoshpere about how great bloggers are... don't you think you are making a little too much of it all? Its just anther medium after all. You are like a writer years ago writing on and on about how great the new invention of pencil lead is. We get it already. It seems you are the only one still astounded by it all.
I find none of this remarkable at all. Howard Dean brought the power of the internet to the attention of all politicians several years ago. My own congressman has an excellent web-site through which I periodically send him emails to which he always answers with a hand-written note so I know he reads them.
Politicians from all over the political spectrum are touting the importance of grassroots efforts and there ain't nothing more grassroots than the blogosphere. If they aren't personally following this medium, you can bet they have a paid staffer who does follow it, as well as talk radio.
My counters say bloggers are getting hits from inside both houses of Congress.
So do yours... one in particular I'm thinking of, just this morning...
Trust me when I tell you; they're watching.
Reid introduced a bill to register all bloggers with a readership over 500, so get ready to rumble with the new Congress in the coming days. They take blogs seriously enough to start regulating them, which is not a good thing.
The 'fairness doctrine' for blogs?
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