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The Buying Of The Democratic Blogosphere

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner threw an expensive party for the folks at YearlyKos over the weekend. Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum questioned whether that was a smart move by Warner, a potential presidential candidate in 2008. Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest thinks it was a "brilliant" marketing strategy.

"Some people wonder if it reflects poorly on his judgment, that he lavishly throws money around," Johnson wrote. "I think this may have been a very effective use of marketing dollars and a very sharp strategic move.

"Think about it this way: If Gov. Warner has now established himself in the front of the pack, and grabbed onto a great big piece of the mindshare of the blogosphere, for only $70,000 (or whatever it cost), then good for him. It shows he knows how to reach the audiences he needs to reach, when he needs to reach them."

Johnson also said the blogosphere will benefit from Warner's attention. "[H]e validated the importance of the emerging blogosphere to the American political process," Johnson said. "He lent his own credibility to the blogosphere."

UPDATE: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos, the inspiration behind YearlyKos, responded to complaints about Warner's spending at the conference. Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, who now works for Warner at Forward Together, are the co-authors of the book "Crashing The Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics."

John Aravosis of Americablog was a bit defensive about the criticism, too.

UPDATE II: Former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox shared her thoughts on Warner's outreach to blogs, as well as on bloggers' criticism of the media and other topics, in Time magazine.

A contributor at The Huffington Post voiced his fears that "many in this sector of the liberal blogosphere can be bought off by a politician showing a little interest and stroking their outsider egos."

And Matthew Yglesias at TPMCafe asks of Warner: "But where's the beef?" (The policy kind, that is, not the bovine kind that may have been part of Warner's lavish spread at YearlyKos.)

UPDATE: Byron York of The Corner dug through recent campaign finance records to confirm that Warner spent $70,000 for the big party at YearlyKos. "Warner clearly spent money in other ways -- t-shirts and the like -- trying to win Kossack favor, so it's not completely clear what his final YearlyKos expenditure was," York added.

Posted by Danny | 12:53 PM

Comments

A contributor at The Huffington Post voiced his fears that "many in this sector of the liberal blogosphere can be bought off by a politician showing a little interest and stroking their outsider egos."

I suppose this is a legitimate concern, but are members of the press any less susceptible to this kind of flattery?

Icepick | 08.24.06 03:40 PM

No, you and other Righters are legitimizing kos and his ilk by being obsessed with him. And, Repub politicians using kos as a boogy man with the voters is going to backfire....once mentioned, people go to his site to see what all the fuss is about. I know alot of workers at my office that regularly read kos because their regular conservative bloggers are making such a fuss over him. Just ignore him for heaven's sake!

hanna | 08.24.06 06:08 PM

Flatter a few egos, spread a little money around, and blogosphere denizens are well on the way to being converted into underpaid ad copywriters. Warner is sharp, all right. His operation sounds like a Democratic "Island of Lost Boys", turning the unsuspecting into donks before they know what hit 'em.

Compared to experienced pols, bloggers are babes in the woods. They'll be bought before they even know they're at risk. Attention, cash, free t-shirts, maybe even a gig at Time, and it's all over.

tom swift | 08.24.06 06:32 PM

George Soros set the standard for buying off the Democratic Party, why shouldn't the Kos Kids be any different or fail to get a piece of the pie?

Milwaukee Bill | 08.25.06 01:32 AM

Another thing that is less obvious, but perhaps more significant is the variance between advertising rates between the left and right sides of the blogosphere.
I am a regular buyer of ads on political blogs, though I do not sell a political message or product.
Most of the ads I buy are on conservative blogs, but only because I get much cheaper rates there for the same traffic. The only explanation I have for this phenomenon is that there is higher demand for ads on the left. I would submit that at least some, if not most, of this demand comes from a calculated desire of message advertisers to curry favor with the bloggers.
As a means of currying favor, buying overpriced ads is a vastly superior method to Warner's, and much of the Left has already learned this. The YearlyKos "buy" was huge and a red cape waving in front of the other side. But all bloggers want more ads sold and rates rising. Overpaying for an ad is transparent and hard to define. Your opposition is unlikely to be anything other than a little jealous, and your friends can more easily pretend that no one is being bought.

Douglas Winship | 08.25.06 09:43 AM

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