In the scheme of things, bloggers are relative newcomers to the political engine to get candidates elected, and prevent others from being elected. It seems that most people trace the birth of the significance of political blogging back to Republican George Allen’s infamous “macaca” moment. His usage of the the slur was captured on video, posted online, and went viral thanks to online activists, many of whom are still blogging today. Since that time, the number of bloggers and blog readers has exploded, allowing for the free flow of information regarding candidates, legislation, scandals, and much more. The “media” means so much more today for campaigns than it did a decade ago, and the importance of “new media” such as blogs, podcasts, and social networking sites is on the rise.

Of course, this creates both and opportunity and a problem for campaigns. This free flow of information is not necessarily what campaigns want during an election. Typically campaigns look to steer the media to distribute positive stories about their candidates, and work with new cycles for best results. However, with new media, there are no set news cycles. A damaging story can be posted online at 3:00 AM just as easily as 3:00 PM. This has created a situation where campaigns must be on their toes all of the time.

The uncertainty of new media hasn’t kept campaigns from investing resources into making supporters out of bloggers, thus steering the kinds of stories posted to blogs. From hosting dinners for bloggers with candidates where the campaign and issues are discussed openly, to providing bloggers with access to various political events, campaigns look to win bloggers over. This isn’t a bad thing, and can pay exceptionally high dividends; especially when you consider that many of those who take the time to blog also take the time to talk to their friends and family, knock on doors, make phone calls, and contribute financially to campaigns.

What I think campaigns tend to forget is that, like the Internet in general, communication goes two ways, and that bloggers often tend to be the mouthpiece of political activists. I’m not saying that one blogger is “the mouthpiece”, but if you read enough blogs focusing on the same election, you tend to get a feel for how the blogging community, and likely the activist community, is feeling about a candidate, campaign, or issue.

Often this “feeling” is resounding. For example, how many blog posts were written by bloggers who were uneasy about the direction taken by Brian Moran’s primary campaign? There were many, and there were a lot more that would have been posted had bloggers expressed how they really felt about the campaign. I made my irritation clear on this blog, and my post was responded to by both Brian Moran’s campaign, which tried to ease my irritation but gave no hint of correcting the problem, and Terry McAuliffe’s campaign, which wanted to quote me in an e-mail to their supporters (I asked that they not).

The Moran campaign didn’t listen to what new media was saying, and I feel that the outcome of the election was shaped by this deafness. Activists were divided, and a primary candidate with limited activist support won the primary. Now that we’re in the general election, Democrats face the very real issue of activist recruitment; unfortunately, it seems that many just aren’t that interested. While this attitude does need to change, it’s a problem from the top of the campaign down to the activists who are waiting for some sort of direction and energy.

Who knows what would have happened if the campaigns had tuned into what bloggers were writing and had taken a few cues from these activists. We may have witnessed a new chapter in political campaigns this past June, with new lessons about new media hopefully learned.

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