Boston Globe on Pa Senate Blogging

Sometimes you have to wonder if reporters do prep work on their articles.

An example would be the Boston Globe on the impact of negative blogging on Senate races.

The new Menendez site seeks to establish the Democratic senator -- appointed to the job by his Democratic predecessor, Jon Corzine, governor of New Jersey -- as being too cozy with the political establishment and moneyed interests, while sites aimed at Democratic Senate candidate Bob Casey Jr. call him too liberal for his home state of Pennsylvania.

Does the story mention the names of those "sites" (plural) that call Casey too liberal?

Of course not.

How many are there? Well, I try to follow the PA Senate blogosphere closely, and I can only think of one obvious one. CaseyIsaLiberal.com, which hasn't been updated with a post since November. It's actually closed. Full disclosure, one of the contributors has joined SantorumBlog, but does not regularly post. (Still alive Jim?)

Another "anti-Casey" blog is TheRealBobCasey.com (sponsored by the Republican Federal Committee of Pa) seems lately to be highlighting his performance as a Treasurer more than anything else. Yes, I know about WheresCasey.com, but that's not a blog. It's an advertisement.

Ok, they don't link to all of those anti-Casey sites into the main article, but in a side bar, and it's only one. They have a gallery of "mudslinging sites" with screenshots.

Here's CaseyIsALiberal.com's.

And here's the funniest part. It's plain as day it's a stale site!! A blog on politics, especially this senate race, that hasn't blogged in months might as well be dead.

Just today MSNBC's Chris Matthews was bashing blogs for not having editors. "Writing must be fact-driven." That's all well and good. If only we had a positive example.

Can someone point to me the other anti-Casey "he's a liberal" blogs? You could make an argument about us, maybe, but generally I link to things with little commentary (being anti-Casey isn't our focus). If anything, the anti-Casey blogs and blog postings are from the left side!

'That's part of American politics," Casey said in an interview, shrugging off the sites. ''People have a First Amendment right to express their point of view."

Amen.

It goes on.

Santorum, whom the Democrats consider the most vulnerable sitting GOP senator up for reelection this year, is the target of numerous websites dedicated to disparaging him.

Mike Panetta, who operates one of the sites, said he launched it in 2000 as a gateway to register voters and provide information about the campaign. But this year, he said, the site has taken on a more interactive quality, with contributors posting remarks. The site now commands 700 to 1,000 hits a week, he said.

In fairness, they didn't link to the site (or the numerous other ones), so it's a mystery. Googling for it, I think it's DumpSantorum.com. Kim Hefling's similar article from a few months back also points to DumpSantorum.com. Although it only seems to be getting 3 to 500 hits / week.

What's the 1,000 hits per week site?

By comparison, for the seven days ending today, we've got over 1,000 visits and 1,500 page views.

Howard Heater, who runs another anti-Santorum site, said he bought several domain names in the hopes of selling them to "rich Republicans" who would want them to promote the senator. He sold none, but developed electsantorum.com as a way to criticize the senator.

That's all the negative side of the blogosphere. There are positive pro-candidate sites. But they seem to all be from the campaigns themselves.

Santorum has a campaign website that is unusually rich in information and multimedia features. Surfers can watch Santorum's campaign ads, read his statements, view his schedule, and even read his personal blog as he campaigns for his third term. The website is meant to reach out particularly to younger people who spend more time on the Internet, spokeswoman Virginia Davis said.

The campaign monitors opposing websites but can't do much about critical postings, she said.

''People recognize that blogs are subjective," she said. ''And other bloggers will chime in with their side of an issue."

Other bloggers like SantorumBlog.

Overall, no plugs for SantorumBlog (doesn't really bother me, we don't try to be a negative site), but man, I hate identifying some pretty fundamental problems. Like Caseyisaliberal.com, and maybe the DumpSantorum hits... so much for editors.

(crossposted at santorumblog.com)

Senate Posted by AlexC at April 10, 2006 2:00 PM