How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

Sometime reason contributor Eric Pfeiffer has a new blog, Ground Game, for Congressional Quarterly.

Here's a snippet:

…blaming Hillary Clinton doesn't negate the fact that several of last night's questions threw the candidates off-guard: Rudy Giulliani jumbled a question about gun rights, Mitt Romney stumbled on the torture question and several candidates, including Mike Huckabee, struggled with pointed questions on immigration.

The real question facing Republicans today is not whether they should make use of emerging technology, but how the medium can be used to improve their communication skills.There's a tendency in the media to overemphasize the real-world impact of online activism, but the danger to those who ignore the grassroots power of the internet is very real.

More here.

Comments

[Vlad Drac]

Being a lying, thieving sociopath while appearing to be honest and straightforward is a full-time job. They all slip up once in a while.

[LarryA]

The real question facing Republicans today is not whether they should make use of emerging technology, but how the medium can be used to improve their communication skills.

Maybe a miracle will happen and they'll learn that real "communication" is two-way. I quit listening to previous campaigns' debates when I found out the talking heads were just going to ask the same MSM-approved questions I'd already seen covered in the newspaper.

Rudy Giulliani jumbled a question about gun rights,

No great surprise there.

[ed]

The reason Ron Paul is so appealing is the same reason he won't win: he's honest and he believes what he says, and deep down he knows he can't win so he has nothing to lose by being forthright. Refreshing, but ultimately doomed.* The last thing Americans want to hear is the truth, all their bleating about "lying politicians" notwithstanding.

*Unless a new renaissance in American political thought is just around the corner.
Do you see it? I sure as hell don't.

[Captain Chaos]

What is it that makes people believe that what candidates say is at all useful or interesting?
a) They don't believe what they're saying.
b) They will follow through on promises only insofar as it helps them get re-elected.
c) The statements they make are not expressions of thoughts or ideas but the carefully focus-grouped and massaged advertising slogans their handlers have provided them with.

It's all kabuki theater, and I'm personally sick and tired of people pretending any of it is real.

Rant off.

[sage]

Mitt Romney was for abortion before he was against it.

Rudy was for gun control before he was against it.

Huckabee was against free speech before he was for it.

[Reinmoose]

If I hear an establishment candidate speak about how we need to "change the way we do things in Washington" or "change the culture in Washington" one more time, I'm going to vomit all over myself.

[VM]

But... but... but... Reinmoose - what if LAMAR!!! says it??? He's not an "insider"!

[Eric Sundwall]

It would have been nice to see RP deflect the 'conspiracy' question better. Something like.. .

' It's hard enough believing the government can do something competent to begin with, let alone the twisted things people purport. The highway plans are real and an extension of global corporatists. Unfortunately the message of freedom often attracts fringe element whose ideas and hopes have no real outlet. I have thirty years of experience on Capital hill and can assure the American people that my interests are theirs. Prosperity, peace and the overwhelming conviction that the individual has a right to be left alone.'

Applause and everybody's calling him a great communicator like the Huckster.

[Rickm]

Isn't ripping off that Dr. Strangelove subtitle a tactic of philistine journalists?

[The Toast Has Lunded]

The reason Ron Paul is so appealing is the same reason he won't win: he's honest and he believes what he says, and deep down he knows he can't win so he has nothing to lose by being forthright.

I'm sorry, but that completely fails to approach the question of why half of the voting population would vote for people who, were it not rightly a dirty word in most of this country, would be proud in considering themselves socialists. Not that I have any better ideas than "original sin" and simple avarice and mendacity coming from a bunch of no-neck monsters.

It's nice to be in this magazine's cabin in the woods, so to speak; I hope I can get my own some day. But that cabin is going to have to be armed to the rafters in order to keep the collectivists from taking my property without consent.

I claim this post in the name of Cabinlund, a country I just made up.