It’s All About Me (Not)

I was curious as to what is going on in one of the hot beds of Hillaryland now that the primary race is over so I did something I have not done in quite a while. I read a post from Taylor Marsh. She does concede that Obama is the nominee and, unlike some Clinton supporters on line, she doesn’t say she plans to protest by staying home or voting for McCain. The final paragraph is illuminating:

On another note, I’ve received zero reach out from the Obama team, which is their prerogative to do or not, but it’s a mistake. I can only hope this isn’t a signal of the way Obama and his team will treat Clinton’s supporters on the whole. It would be a disaster of election shifting proportions; one that the country can ill afford.

Whether or not the campaign reaches out to Taylor Marsh or any other blogger is hardly the major issue of 2008. Some campaigns tend to reach out more to individual bloggers than others. I had a lot of contact with the Kerry campaign in 2004. I even had a fair bit of contact from the Clinton campaign until I started responding to all their emails with their latest talking points and invitations conference calls with the same warning that “this attack will only backfire against Clinton and get more people to back Obama.” I was right every time, but they stopped emailing me. Imagine that!

Obama’s campaign doesn’t operate the same way. They have been fortunate to have a tremendous number of people work for Obama without organization from the campaign. Whether they are right or wrong, they do not appear to be interested in the same type of mass outreach to supportive bloggers as many other candidates have been. Most likely their lack of outreach to Taylor Marsh has nothing to do with her having been a Clinton supporter.

It was great when other candidates have been in contact with me, but that is not why I supported any particular candidates. The election is about what we do about Iraq, restoring civil liberties, restoring the checks and balances on the executive branch, improving access to health care, and many other issues. It is not about whether a candidate reaches out to me or Taylor Marsh.

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