An excerpt here from a post by Ian Welsh at The Agonist on Monday,
This has caused a certain stir amongst liberal bloggers, because Obama doesn't invite us to his calls, and never has.
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Obama reached our audience without going through us, and sees no reason to bother with outreach to us. Bloggers who now support Obama do so despite the fact that Obama can't be bothered to do blogger outreach.
Obama only works with groups who can deliver votes he can't easily get on his own. So SEIU has a voice. We do not because we did not deliver our readers, he got them on his own.
There’s more. You can click the link above and read the whole thing if you want, but the rest of it is the same silly tripe as this. Sort of a Rodney Dangerfield meme of, “I don’t get no respect.” Most whining teenagers don’t.
Barack Obama has promised to change the Washington practice of catering to “special interests.” What is “liberal bloggers” if not a special interest group? Mr. Welsh thinks that Obama should cater to liberal bloggers because it’s the right special interest group, his special interest group, but that isn’t what Obama promised. He didn’t say he would cut off the conservative groups, or the ones with money, he said he would not cater to special interest groups and did not qualify that as to type.
One certainly cannot say that Obama does not know how to reach out on the internet. Where did a large part of his campaign money come from?
Also this from Marc Ambinder at TheAtlantic.com today,
Obama clearly intends to use the Web, if he is elected president, to transform governance just as he has transformed campaigning. Notably, he has spoken of conducting “online fireside chats” as president.
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He proposes creating a public, Google-like database of every federal dollar spent. He aims to post every piece of non-emergency legislation online for five days before he signs it so that Americans can comment. A White House blog—also with comments—would be a near certainty. Overseeing this new apparatus would be a chief technology officer.
I have advocated in this space for Barack Obama for almost a year to at least some degree. I have certainly advocated against Hillary Clinton for a similar period. I have done that for the satisfaction of self-expression, and it has served that purpose very well. At times I have seen evidence that this blog has served to carry my opinions to others and to serve as an instrument of persuasion, and that is a valuable bonus. I do not expect that Barack Obama should call or write and thank me for my help.
But then I’m a bit more than seventeen years old.
Yes, a wee bit more than 17... I'll ask Momlee if you were whiny at 17. Me, I kept my mouth shut, I knew what was good for me (I think). I'm sure Momlee would have something to say about that, too.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it was a WTF moment when I read that part paraphrased as I/we don't get no respect . Sen. Obama has a greater reach grassroots wise via the internet than anyone I can think of (except maybe Howard Dean back in 2004). He is trying to "cater" to everyone, in the sense of getting everyone to work together and ignore the whiners and distractors. Or something like that. Ms. Clinton seems to cater to more and more of a narrow focus. Seems like a special interest to me! And self-serving anything is a special interest.
A presidential candidate needs to appeal to a broad electorate, and this will be not well served by micro-managing. He's not paying attention to you individually? Go to one of his rallys, and stand in the hand-shaking line, you'll get your 5 sec of attention.
Don't whine to me about him (or anyone) not paying attention to yourself. Get a dog.
And thanks to Mr. Jayhawk for expressing his own opinion and carrying on in the face of malcontents such as this. Of course, that's not too hard.
At seventeen Jayhawk was mouthy maybe, but not whiny. As to Bruce: well, not quite shut all the time, but not whiny (unless the projected lower lip counts).
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