Edwards, and the bloggers

So far, the Edwards campaign is coming out with the right response, but he only gets half-marks (which means, in my case, he's not lost the possibility of my vote).

Why only half-marks? Because he bobbled.

First, he (or his campaign) seems to have been asleep for the issues the blogosphere has been raising, and the, completely predictable, response of the hall-monitors for the "conservatively correct" brigade caught them unprepared.

A smart campaign would have said, in house; before they called Marcotte or McEwan, "We are gonna get hammered for this. Something they've written will be tosssed out as an example of how, "out of touch" with the, allegedly, "mainstream voter" they are. We are going to be told we have to fire them, if we want to win."

Then, said smart campaign, drafts a rough sketch of the response, hires the bloggers, and waits for the expected hue and cry. They then take an hour, make the response fit the narrative ploy of the highjackers (because that's what thought police are trying to do in this sort of thing, change the arc of the campaign to being about the campaigners, not the issues) and told them to stuff it.

But they didn't. They were caught flat-footed, and the statement they made was half a concession.


"The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word....

Weak.

That statement was not a ringing endorsement of anything. It didn't say, "Hey, I hired these people. I knew what they had written when I offered them the job, and I'm going to keep them, because I wanted them, and you people aren't on my side, so why should I listen to you."

It said rather, "you have some valid complaints, and I won't let them do it again."

It was a cop-out, and it invites more of the same.

He might still have gotten 3/4 marks if that statement had been promptly made. But it wasn't. The news cycle got to chew on it for hours, and things more important (like the Libby trial) lost some of the attention they deserve.

If other campaigns take notice, and do the prep work required, so they don't get caught out like this, then it will have been to some good, but really, this shouldn't have happened like this.

Sigh

Outside the politcal-junkie arena, the Edwards blogger-flap is now old news.

Because Anna Nicole Smith dropped dead.

I wasn't going to mention it, but I went to run some errands (bought some potting soil, and a 72 cup sprouting bed. Fennel, melons and mignonette go into dirt tomorrow) and when I came back, 90 minutes later, CNN was still running nothing but stuff about her.

WTF? She was famous because she took her clothes off (which I'm not against, but you know what, I don't see that it qualifies as something which ought to be noteworthy), married a billionaire, and was sued because of his leaving her a lot of money.

Which might merit adding her to the headline cycle, but to stop everything else (how many choppers were shot down in the past couple of weeks? What about the four Marines who died in Al Anbar. The pallet-loads of money which was just handed out when Bremer was leaving Iraq [and why didn't I get some?]? The budget?) that we might be hearing about, and interview some poor bastard who was there when the body was moved?

Why... because all they know is she's dead. She has a kid (6 months old) a fortune, and some question about who will be the guardian (and trustee) for a (still-contested) fortune.

To add insult to injury (and what set me off), while I was gone, they went from speculations about the estate, to talking of her as if she was some sort of hero/saint. I find it hard to believe (though not impossible) all of Hollywood is now in mourning, that she was some huge influence on studios, producers and all the rest of the people who make up Hollywood.

But that (and the description of her recent life as being full of hardship, which she overcame) is what they were saying.

I feel for her friends. I feel sorry for the kid. I suspect a lot of the money (though given how much is at stake, not a significant amount; in terms of relative value to the estate) is going to end up in the pockets of lawyers.

I also, to be honest, don't give a damn, and want the press to pay attention to things which actually have real effect, and relegate the entertainment/personality news, to the second (or third) tier, where it belongs.