The question is whether it will do Noriega much good.
[snip]
Texas' progressive bloggers in June launched a Draft Noriega movement on the Internet, built around a 7,000-person e-mail list that Richard Morrison of Sugar Land had gathered during his unsuccessful 2004 challenge to the re-election of then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
The draft movement was so closely timed to Noriega's announcement of the formation of a Senate exploratory committee that it appeared to be coordinated, something the bloggers deny.
Then Watts announced that 800 donors had given him $1.1 million in June to supplement the $3.8 million of his own money he had put into the race.
As a countermove, the pro-Noriega bloggers in July publicly set a goal of raising money from 800 donors in a month. When that did not occur, they moved the goal post to the end of the quarter, Sept. 30. As of Thursday, they had raised $53,897 from 692 supporters.
Noriega early last month went to Chicago to rub elbows with liberal bloggers at the Yearly Kos convention, and received the endorsement of Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas.
But then Noriega returned home and told the Texas Broadcasters Association that the blogs are as destructive a force in democracy as talk radio.
"We've seen talk radio become an organizing tool for the die-hard right, while liberals are credited with turning the blogosphere into a political weapon. Each of those media has a targeted demographic group and works them into an ideological lather," Noriega said.
"This, I believe, is damaging to the political culture in this country."
[snip]
While Morrison sparked the Draft Noriega movement, an Austin woman who identifies herself as Boadicea Warrior Queen managed the Web site. Boadicea agreed to be interviewed if her real name was not used.
"I already consider it successful because we are generating interest in the Senate campaign on the Democratic side," said Boadicea, who has lived in Texas about 10 years. "People generally haven't been all that interested in what was happening with the Democrats."
She said bloggers can help boost a candidate in the beginning, but she said Noriega's campaign will have to use traditional organizing and tactics to win.
[snip]
In the article above, R.G. Ratcliffe asked the question "Do bloggers generate enough interest to change politics?"This got me thinking that I might just try out this blog to see how hard blogging is. By the end of the campaign, I hope to have an answer to R.G. Ratcliffe's question.
3 comments:
Here's one hint.
Copying huge tracts of someone else's writing-not such a good start to your blogging career. I'm assuming, of course, you don't have permission to do so. If that's the case, by all means, carry on.
I disagree pretty strongly with R.G.'s article. Still, he did take the time to write it, so a shorter excerpt with a bit more in the way of actual content from you would be a bit more kosher...
Thanks for the advice. I quoted a larger segment of the article because it was the very article which inspired the blog so it seemed important to get the broader context.
It's not always easy to find the right balance, but FWIW, I've found that a little less (with a link back to the original) is more. I've actually had whole postings of mine ripped off, so I'm a bit sensitive about that sort of thing.
I think you'll find blogging is maddening, time consuming, and rewarding in turns-sometimes all at the same time.
One thing is, however, you've selected a rich vein to mine in the Tx Senate race. Just don't be so easily discouraged as your comment at Burka's place indicates.
This race is a difficult undertaking-and there is only one guarantee in politics.
You can't win if you don't fight.
Welcome to the fight.
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