Friday, December 19, 2003

Lawrence Lessig tells Chris Lydon that in the current presidential campaign, "there will be a change that comes from the fact that people are participating in the construction of the political story around them. That in my view will be the most important political event in the last hundred years." (via BoP) Hmm. Even allowing that a few things might vie for that most-important-in-the last-hundred-years title (Civil Rights? Women's suffrage? The New Deal?), it's still a big claim. One which I hope turns out to be true, but if it was a dotcom I probably wouldn't buy the stock. 5:30:01 PM    comment []

Elizabeth Edwards says this post, lamenting response time at several campaign blogs (including her husband's) to the news of Saddam's capture, is not realistic. John was on a red-eye from California, and he released a statement as soon as possible. Ed, you need to be realistic about the candidates, their mode of operation (some require that their words be used, others that words proposed by others be approved, and others allow staff to respond). I assume that in this case all the candidates at least approved the releases. But they all can't be available before you log in in the morning; it hardly means that they are insensitive to the medium. Understood. A statement from the candidate isn't always going to be available on Internet time. Josh Marshall deflated a big balloon full of bloghype at BloggerCon by making a similar point. But I think the medium is flexible enough that people who are using it really well would have found a way to have something up at the blog by noon Sunday. It's a many-to-many medium, about not just the candidate and staff but the larger campaign. Part of a parallel media, by and for a community. A forum on the news put up by a staffer, a placeholder post saying that the Senator would comment when he got off the plane...in a real-time medium, those things make sense to me. Especially if you want your website/blog to be the center of a community, not just an adjunct to it. 5:10:28 PM    comment []

I've received several emails from people who are having trouble downloading the PDF file of the Dean campaign case study from the Baseline site. Word of the glitch has been passed along to the ZD citadel on East 28th Street in New York, and I'm told that the people who fix that kind of thing are working on it now. Thanks for your patience. 2:21:03 PM    comment []

Elizabeth Ito, the Forsyth County community college instructor who lost her job after questioning the war in Iraq during class time, has lost her appeal for reinstatement. The N&R says the meeting where her appeal to Forsyth Tech was discussed may have been improperly closed to the public. 2:15:43 PM    comment []

Dave Winer created an aggregator for Dean-centric weblogs, Dean Community News. Dave is not a Deaniac, he's interested in technology that makes democracy work better. I'm not a Dean supporter, either, by the way (I'm undecided), just a journalist covering the intersection of technology and politics. 9:14:15 AM    comment []

South Carolina is a key to John Edwards' primary strategy, and he's been doing well there in early polls. But the News & Record's Eric Dyer reports this morning that the state is still up for grabs.   Edwards himself posted from South Carolina yesterday at his campaign weblog.   The Edwards South Carolina campaign weblog is not the most vibrant site on the Web. It does not feel like a grassroots effort.   Wesley Clark supporters have two SC blogs -- whole state and upstate -- both pretty lively. Dean doesn't have an official SC weblog, but does have a volunteer blog and website. 9:01:50 AM    comment []

What would you ask Joe Lieberman if he was at the urinal next to you? I would have gone with the one about the weblog. 8:21:14 AM    comment []