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John McCain's Attempt At GOP Blog Outreach

Sen. John McCain has a lot of work to do if he wants to win the backing of conservative bloggers for his run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

His campaign, which includes Ankle Biting Pundits blogger Patrick Hynes as a consultant, tried to make nice with a few of the bloggers yesterday. But to hear Mary Katharine Ham of Townhall tell it, McCain's blog outreach didn't do much to assuage the longstanding animosity that the bloggers have for McCain because of his advocacy for campaign finance rules, among other things.

Ham praised McCain's campaign for organizing the first of what it promises will be on-the-record chats with bloggers. She compared it with a good first session of "couples therapy." The relationship is still on the rocks, though, and Ham said the burden is on the McCain team.

"Some of the answers were good, but I didn't feel like conservative bloggers' real, politely presented, substantive issues with McCain were taken as seriously as they could have been," she wrote. "I mean, we've got some deep-seated issues, here, that have developed over many years for some of us. There were only a few of us on the call, and I wish we could have gone longer."

GOP new media consultant David All live-blogged the call and offered this take on it afterward:

This was not a "Team McCain giving us the Jack Bauer interrogation to support his candidacy." It was, rather a, "Hey, we know we don't agree on all the issues, but we respect your contribution to the process, want to know how you're feeling, and want to include you in our kitchen-cabinet to help us make better decisions next time."

Others commenting on the call:

-- Captain's Quarters: "If the blogosphere wants to maintain a position of credibility, then we cannot be seen as the mud factory of the elections, especially in the primary. Campaigns (for president or anything else) that want to use blogger credibility as a channel to reach the voters need to be careful of using bloggers to bubble attack memes up to the surface."

-- RedState: "While specific policies weren'at the focus of the call ... I hope they play an important role in the future. For now, the mere fact that bloggers are commanding the attention of McCain's team is positive step."

-- Wizbang Politics: "I explained that my problems with McCain were more general, rather than policy specific. ... An example I gave was my problem with his past history with the media, including his playing up the maverick persona, which often is portrayed in the media as McCain battling those evil, unreasonable Republicans."

Posted by Danny | 09:20 AM

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