McCain Puts Spamming First!
Team McCain has launched an exciting new program that, as WaPo's Paul Fahri puts it, "combines the features of 'AstroTurf' campaigning with the sort of customer-loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotel chains, restaurants and the occasional daily newspaper." Here's how McCain's site puts it: Help spread the word about John McCain on news and blog sites. Your efforts to help get the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on August 7, 2008 13:45
Bloggers Not Swearing So Bleeping Much
NYT Katharine Seelye reports on a panel on bloggers and swearing at Netroots Nation (the successor to YearlyKos) and finds that the trend is toward less of it and that most of what remains is coming from Amanda Marcotte. Digby Parton, who writes on Hullabaloo.com, said she initially thought of her blog as an ephemeral form of conversation among friends and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 20, 2008 07:26
Enforcing Civility in Blog Comments
Alan Jacobs: "Nothing could better justify Ross’s decision to start moderating comments on his blog than the comments on the announcement itself." For those who don't click links, Ross Douthat has announced that, "From now on, one of the Atlantic's crack interns will be going through the comment threads at the end of every business day, deleting any comments that ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 17, 2008 06:45
‘World’s Greatest Dad’ Arrested in Internet Sex Sting
Not our standard fare but a hard one to resist: A man from Oakland County [Michigan] has been arrested and charged in an Internet sex sting. Daniel Everett, 33, of Clarkston was talking online with a 14-year-old girl who he met in a chat room. The two had graphic sexual conversations and Everett propositioned the teen to meet him for sex. But ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 16, 2008 09:56
Bloggers and Journalism: False Dichotomy
Stilgherrian has attended one too many Future of Media conferences and he has a long tirade for Old Media journalists whining about bloggers and professional standards. What’s tiring about this false dichotomy is that it compares the highest ideal of journalism with the lowest grade of personal blogging about what the cat did yesterday and — lo and behold! — they’re ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 16, 2008 07:09
Obama’s Surge Purge Emerges, Demonstrates Nerve, Verges on Scourge, Reactions Diverge
Barack Obama has taken things off his campaign site that might be used by opponents to embarrass him, James Gordon Meek reports in the NY Daily News under the headline "Obama Purges Web Critique of Surge." Why, it's our Outrage of the Day! Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 15, 2008 12:27
The Importance of the Deficit
In commenting about John McCain's budget plans, Matthew Yglesias threw out this comment: Given the present circumstances, I can't think of any good reason for a presidential candidate to be promising to that we'll be at balanced budgets in four years. It would be nice to see the deficit on a decreasing trajectory rather than an increasing one, but achieving short-term ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 15, 2008 11:15
Defunct Blog Increasingly Influential
John Sides and Eric Lawrence begin an LAT piece on the importance of political blogs, "Who listens to blogging heads?" thusly: Daily Kos. Little Green Footballs. Talking Points Memo. Instapundit. Firedoglake. Captain's Quarters. These are among the thousands of political blogs that are increasingly a factor in U.S. politics. Given that Ed Morrissey shuttered the last of those months ago to join ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 14, 2008 08:54
Obama Plunges in Newsweek Poll!
Newsweek has released a new poll and is excited by the huge change: "Glow Fading? The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make." This is quite amusing in that pretty much everyone agreed that the June 20th Newsweek poll was an outlier. No matter. In ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 12, 2008 06:56
Throwing Sister Souljah Under the Bus
Publius thinks it's time to ban the phrase "Sister Souljah" moment, not just because it's hackneyed but because it has been misused. The more benign interpretation is that a Sister Souljah moment occurs when a candidate criticizes some group or idea nominally aligned with that candidate. In short, it’s criticizing your own coalition – or some idea valued by your coalition ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 11, 2008 09:08
