Hillary Clinton and the Blogosphere

None of this will be new to those who follow the blogs, but The Politico is running a story on Hillary Clinton’s lack of support in the blogosphere.

Much of the bloggers’ ire is directed at Clinton’s nuanced Iraq policy – from her initial support for the war to her hesitancy in moving away from that position. Even her condemnation of President Bush’s surge proposal, and her calls for troop redeployment, have been derided as “late to the party.”

But such criticism is actually a window into an even broader critique of New York’s junior senator. Many in the blog community view Clinton as overly strategic, and even insincere, in her political maneuvering.
“To most bloggers, authenticity is an important criterion. There is an allergic reaction to hypercautious politicians,” The Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington wrote in an e-mail. “Hillary Clinton’s problem with the blogosphere is that she has been so calculating that you can smell it. Every thought has been processed through multiple channels in her and her consultants’ brains. It’s so fabricated.”

Exacerbating this criticism is Clinton’s standing as an inside-the-Beltway politician. Her employment of high-profile consultants such as pollster Mark Penn has drawn the condemnation of the blog community that sees this as the root cause of her cautious politicking. Most bloggers shun the label “anti-establishment.” But many blame the D.C.-insider, consultant-based method of campaigning that Clinton is utilizing for the Democrats’ (recently ended) political dry spell.

What effect opinions like these will have on the primary or general elections is unclear. In an April 2007 Daily Kos poll, Clinton received only 3 percent of the site users’ support. And yet, a Cook/RT Strategies national poll around the same time had her winning 36 percent of the potential Democratic vote.

Even veterans of online politics caution against overvaluing the blogosphere’s significance. “Candidates have been obsessing about bloggers and ignoring their base,” said Zack Exley, director of online organizing and communications for the 2004 John Kerry campaign. “The candidates need to make a direct connection with their base and turn that base on and get the $100 million.”

Clinton has made her share of plays for blogosphere support. She hired as her blog adviser Peter Daou, who in 2004 was the Kerry presidential campaign’s director of online response and blog outreach. She also brought onboard Jesse Berney, a prominent liberal blogger who worked for four years at the Democratic National Committee writing and editing Web and e-mail content.

“I think the blog community is a tremendous addition to American politics and an important part of the political process,” Daou said in an interview, after declining to discuss the campaign’s online strategy. “There is a wide range of opinion in the blog community, and sometimes they will agree on some issues with Sen. Clinton and sometimes they will disagree. The beauty of the medium is that there is a diversity of opinion.”

The Kerry campaign in 2004 showed that polls of bloggers are not representative of pirmary voters, and not predictive of the results. While this article does capture much of the criticism of Clinton among bloggers, the  question of authenticity is not so clear. Many bloggers are willing to overlook similar opportunism from John Edwards as long as he has a big smile and adopts many of the views which are popular in the blogosphere.

3 Comments

  1. 1
    yo says:

    Hillary Clinton said that her childhood dream was to be an Olympic athlete. But she was not athletic enough. She said she wanted to be an astronaut, but at the time they didn’t take women. She said she wanted to go into medicine, but hospitals made her woozy. Should she be telling people this story? I mean she’s basically saying she wants to be president because she can’t do anything else.”
    –Jay Leno

    “Well, the big story — Hillary Clinton will be running for president in 2008. You know why I think she’s running? I think she finally wants to see what it’s like to sleep in the president’s bed.”
    –Jay Leno

    “Top Democrats have mixed feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton running for president. Apparently, some Democrats don’t like the idea, while others hate it.”

    –Conan O’Brien

    “In a fiery speech this weekend, Hillary Clinton wondered why President Bush can’t find the tallest man in Afghanistan.
    Probably for the same reason she couldn’t find the fattest intern under the desk.”
    –Jay Leno

    “Former President Bill Clinton said that if his wife, Hillary, is elected president, he will do whatever she wants.
    You know Bill Clinton — when he makes a vow to Hillary, you can take that to the bank.”
    –Jay Leno

    A student from the University of Washington has sold his soul on eBay for $400. He’s a law student, so he probably doesn’t need it, but still, that’s not very much. Today, Hillary Clinton said, ‘Hey, at least I got some furniture and a Senate seat for mine.”
    -Jay Leno

    “Hillary Clinton said today that she wants legislation to allow all ex-felons to vote. See, this way all the Clinton’s former business partners can vote for her in 2008.”
    –Jay Leno

    Hillary Clinton’s 506-page memoirs have come out. So much of her personality shines through, that in the end, you, too, will want to sleep with an intern.”
    Craig Kilborn

    In Hillary Clinton’s new book ‘Living History,’ Hillary details what it was like meeting Bill Clinton, falling in love with him, getting married, and living a passionate, wonderful life as husband and wife. Then on page two, the trouble starts.”
    – Jay Leno

    “In the book, she says when Bill told her he was having an affair, she said “I could hardly breathe, I was gulping for air.
    No, I’m sorry, that’s what Monica said.”

    – David Letterman

    “Hillary Clinton, our junior senator from New York, announced that she has no intentions of ever, ever running for office of the President of the United States. Her husband, Bill Clinton, is bitterly disappointed. He is crushed. There go his dreams of becoming a two-impeachment family.”
    – David Letterman

    “Last night, Senator Hillary Clinton hosted her first party in her new home in Washington . People said it was a lot like the parties she used to host at the White House. In fact, even the furniture was the same.”
    – Jay Leno

    “Senator Hillary Clinton is attacking President Bush for breaking his campaign promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions, saying a promise made, a promise broken. And then out of habit, she demanded that Bush spend the night on the couch.”
    – Craig Kilborn

    “CNN found that Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America. Women admire her because she’s strong and successful. Men admire her because she allows her husband to cheat and get away with it.”
    – Jay Leno

    “Hillary Clinton is the junior senator from the great state of New York. When they swore her in, she used the Clinton family Bible. . .the one with only seven commandments.”

    -David Letterman

  2. 2
    yucca says:

    i for one support hillary!

    but it’s true.

    a good example of it being the fact that if you google blogs for hillary, the first item that comes up (at least last time i tried) is blog against hillary 😉

  3. 3
    q says:

    I’m a HRC supporter also. Hope the myDD and Kos rants become less right-wing hate speech oriented and more focused on promotion of their candidates or legitimate policy discussion. I sensed an improvement lately at Kos, so there’s hope for those that site yet. I think otherwise they may drive possible contributors away and remain fringe in some senses as a democratic movement. Better to allow all to debate freely.

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