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* This article comes at an appropriate time since I’ll be speaking later today about the Intertubes, social media and politics. It’s entitled “Campaign Web sites a must, even for local races,” and looks at the Bloomington area for examples…

Tari Renner, another Bloomington mayor candidate, said Web sites allow candidates to “communicate with people more effectively. You still need the day-to-day, face-to-face contact with constituents, especially in local races,” he said.

Bloomington Mayor Steve Stockton said a Web site is a nice supplement.

“(Residents) can find information about a candidate and communicate ideas to a candidate. But I don’t think it’s a substitute for face-to-face contact,” he said.

Like Renner and Stockton, Normal Mayor Chris Koos had a Web site for previous elections, but this year’s is much more sophisticated.

“This is more interactive, you can donate and see video,” Koos said. “You need to do it. Most people are comfortable with the Internet and it’s a good way to get a lot of information to people.” […]

Redfield said the quality of the Web site is important — especially since younger voters have a sophisticated set of criteria. Candidates also need to avoid being overly aggressive with e-mails and text messages.

“There’s no question is going to continue to grow … they’re going to get more sophisticated,” he said.

* The Question: What would you tell a candidate about setting up his or her Website and social media outreach efforts? Not only what they should do, but what they should avoid.

And please put some serious thought into your responses so I can use them later today. Thanks much.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:16 am

Comments

That voters don’t pay any more attention to websites as they do to newspapers, radio, TV….there is no substitute for door to door, face to face contact.

Comment by Reddbyrd Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:25 am
Certainly you want to be very sure that what you post is factual. Also, having dealt a great deal with cyber-sabotage I would recommend that you have a very reliable company hosting your web site as it is easy to take a site down or hack it. Obviously know your audience, stay current on your site, and monitor the comments carefully. To help in this matter, call Rich, da man with experience!

Comment by Justice Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:26 am
===To help in this matter, call Rich, da man with experience!===

Please, no. lol

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:30 am
Websites are important. Sophisticated, user-friendly website have a lot of benefits for a candidate. The candidate can describe his/her stance on issues more fully than may be possible in an article, interview, etc.

Websites can also be useful tools in developing voter and volunteer lists. Having a form for visitors to fill out allows important data to be compiled.

Additionally, websites can supplement other aspects of the campaign. Fundraising, for instance, has been helped by the Internet. Small donors can give online. If the candidate is calling a donor, he/she can direct them to the website instead of having to wait for a check in the mail.

Websites and e-mail offer voters an opportunity to ask questions to the candidate/campaign. This provides a chance to communicate directly to voters with tailored messages, and can help a candidate identify issues that he/she may want to begin discussing at events.

Of course, websites and email are tools. They must be used effectively, and do not replace face-to-face contacts and live events.

Comment by Some Guy Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:31 am
Don’t waste campaign resources on expensive proprietary website doohickeys if there is a free alternative. People who are familiar with the free alternative will notice, and could choose not to donate to your campaign if they see this as a waste of resources.

Make it easy to find out where your candidate’s going to be (a calendar of appearances, frequently updated, is a good thing).

Make it easy to figure out how to volunteer. Include a FAQ on volunteering to put first time volunteers at ease. I remember the first time that I wanted to volunteer was a pain in the butt. From figuring out where to go and when, to not knowing what volunteering was actually going to entail, it was a pain. Volunteers are the lifeblood of any campaign - make their lives easier. Old pros know what to do, but it can be a pain in the rear for newbies.

Keep the website clean. A cluttered front page is a turnoff.

Keep it well organized - make it easy to find information on the candidate’s background and make it easy to find her policy positions. And don’t throw in lame generalities - put some work into it.

Have a campaign blog and a facebook page. Make sure that you moderate comments though. And the blogger should be responsive to questions. Don’t be evasive. If the choice is between not responding and being evasive, choose the former. (The beauty of moderated comments is that a tough question never even has to see the light of day).

Post the candidate’s speeches - in both text and video. Get a good video editor to slice up debate footage and present the “highlights.”

Don’t use mailing lists and as just another fundraising list. Make sure that you communicate with supporters, not just beg them for money.

Use the list to generate good press - if there’s some kind of community service event or something, then ask your supporters to volunteer to help out. It generates good feelings from supporters and may generate positive press.

Comment by jerry 101 Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:36 am
Let us all stipulate now that nothing can replace face-to-face contact. No need to mention it again.

Thanks.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:36 am
your website is just another part of your message delivery system. make sure that the site matches and conveys your message.

too many websites are hard to navigate. make your candidate site easy to navigate. remember that more people have access to the web, but if you play to the techies, you miss out on average people who want information. or confuse them. don’t give too many videos and graphics. but do have a video welcoming message.

make sure your positions are clearly provided. give pix of your supporters at events. give a space to welcome new supporters and get them to sign on as volunteers and donate money.

publicize your schedule so people can come to meet you in the real world.

remember that if you provide access to blog etc, you will have to live with the consequences of what people put on the site. unless you control the information shown, your site has the potential to derail your message with silly stories about a
bad post.

to the extent possible, every piece of printed material, mail, flyers, articles, and your radio and tv/internet media, should coordinate in look and content with the web presence. provide links. it’s also a good way to remember that others will link what you do to you so if you are proud of your work, linking it will be of benefit. if not, you might think first about your other work.

Comment by Amy Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:36 am
Don’t forget social media, folks. Thanks.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:40 am
It is the first thing we talk about, and it is a spare no expense type operation. Getting them to agree to building out is no longer the problem (although for a long time it was), rather the issue is making them understand the importance of being able to dedicate someone to making certain the number of different social networking sites are used properly (for those who didnt realize, there are so many more than just Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and FLICKR), and there is a constant search for new information. Plus the ability to micro-target an advertising campaign is essential from a cost and messaging standpoint. Finally, among the internal decisions, anyone who is not spending a little extra to place the analyitics on their site is wasting time. If you dont know where people are going you cant figure out what to message and who to target. I am off my soapbox…

Comment by The Pug is on the Prowl Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:42 am
I have run multiple State, local campaigns over the years and have been very cautious when setting up a candidate web site. Yes they are informative, a way to reach out to young new voters, and are becoming a new source of raising contributions. However, you must also be prepared to maintain the site up to date and to answer email inquiries in an expediant manner. Caution - all answers must be carefully scutinized before dissimination. In my personal experience the more local the race (geographically) many if not most of the “hits” were from outside the candidate’s area, in other words non voters to your candidate. Another concern was receiving suspicious email questions appearing to trap your candidate. Bottom line websites are here to stay and their use will be ever expanding but caution is advised.

Comment by cautious Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:42 am
I think the ideal campaign makes the candidate available for online interaction, but limits the amount of time.

Candidates can get too comfortable interacting with people online and do it too much. It doesn’t replace traditional forms of interaction, it’s something that needs to be done in addition to community groups, candidate forums, kissing the rings of local leaders, etc.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:42 am
and let me add, the cost of CPC, CPM and keyword is essential too…to often, even today, the internet is viewed as a supplement, when in fact it is a key part of any strategy…

Comment by The Pug is on the Prowl Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:44 am
Also, one should try to fit volunteers with stuff they want to do. Yeah, almost everybody needs a little push to knock on doors and get on the phones.

But if a campaign recruits somebody online, it may make sense to ask the person to volunteer online. Yeah, ask him/her to come on Saturdays and knock on doors. But have some projects to get online people doing something for the campaign.

They will be more invested in the campaign after four hours of doing stuff than if they didn’t get assignments to do stuff.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:52 am
Utilizing YouTube to post video from the candidate or from events and speeches is a good idea. Embed the video in the campaign site.

A Facebook page is also a useful way to notify people (generally younger voters) of upcoming events, new videos, volunteering opportunities, etc.

As for Twitter, I don’t personally use it. I’m not sure how effective it is on campaigns. I imagine it would depend on the campaign and the candidate.

Blogs can describe recent rallies, news articles, and anything else the campaign wants to highlight. Jerry 101 is correct in saying the comments must be moderated.

Having a bad website, Facebook page, or anything else has the exact opposite effect. It make the candidate look unprofessional and out of touch. Have someone with experience with new media on the campaign.

Comment by Some Guy Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:52 am
Websites are printed radio and television. It is an excellent investment in a campaign. It can be the hub of campaign messaging and be used not only for fund raising, but also for creating and controlling a candidate’s image and messages.

I would ensure that my candidate have a website with a prominent spot where the candidate can be videotaped reading comments and letters, and commenting directly to the web visitor through the camera. I would ensure that the camera caught the positive characteristics and capture the humor and intelligence of the candidate. Honest, open and direct visual response to comments and letters that can be viewed by web visitors is a potent campaign tool. Voters want to see candidates think and react to them. Having a campaign spot where they can see how real a candidate can be, tears down walls and makes voters feel that they know the candidate.

What I have seen so far from websites is little more than passive television advertising methods. They do not interact with web visitors. I like some of the interactive meetings I saw on some presidential candidate websites, and this is an excellent tool - but more costly than necessary. What these media/web events do is pretty much mimic live television, an improvement, but is still mid-20th Century mentality, not 21st.

You like door to door visits? Why? Because of the personal connection created. Do this on the web! It can be done!

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 10:59 am
We had a great volunteer who ran our twitter page, so I’ll just put down some of the things I saw him do and how it helped Quigley’s campaign.

The beauty of twitter is the search function. You can look, regionally, at what people are talking about and engage them directly (albeit, 140 characters at a time).

Our volunteer searched by Chicago for political words. When someone popped up, they were directly engaged and often times simply guided straight to our website to answer their questions.

There are no easy metrics to measure vote conversion, but I’ll say this: we recruited 12 volunteers out of it, one of which, saved our butts when our network crashed about 3 days before the election and he was able to come in and help us troubleshoot the problems.

Comment by Tom B. Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:00 am
Cautious said:

In my personal experience the more local the race (geographically) many if not most of the “hits” were from outside the candidate’s area, in other words non voters to your candidate.

This bears repeating from a strategic point of view. Remember, the web is international, and is (for the most part) not targeted. So, the web is a far more efficient tool for a national candidate (like Obama) rather than a local candidate; especially if you keep in mind that the costs of a web site are mostly fixed costs, i.e., it costs almost the same to design a nice web site whether you need it to reach 1,000 people or 10,000,000.

Another point is that content on the web is a delicate balancing game. Political bloggers write in a snarky, ironic, sarcastic voice and this is what attracts people to the web site. However, this voice is not appropriate for a candidate — everything on the site is public, and you can even go back with sites like archives.org to older version of the web site. It’s easy to do something embarassing on a candidate web site that will haunt a candidate in the future.

As a result, I think it’s very important for a candidate to think about what she wants to accomplish from a web site. If it’s fundraising, then every single page must contain a link to the “donate here” portion of the site. If it’s e-organizing, you get more bang for the buck from social networking sites like Facebook.

Social networking sites are also good for sending out “talking points” and “message of the day” — tools for keeping message discipline with campaign supporters and volunteers.

I think the next new trend will be supporters setting up their own web sites, or social networking groups to tell the candidate’s story in their own words to their own social networks. This makes message control a bit more difficult, but if the candidate did a good job on message discipline within the campaign, this should trickle down to volunteers and supporters in general.

Comment by the Other Anonymous Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:00 am
The gold standard for smart use of the Internet was set by the Obama campaign. It worked beautifully because it created a relationship with supporters based on daily 2-way communication, including occasional video messages from the campaign manager, opportunities to support the campaign, advance notice of announcements and a lot more. He announced Joe Biden in advance to people who were signed on to his web site, putting substance into the relationship instead of fluff. In my own corporate setting I have pointed to Obama’s campaign as a model for how we should build our relationship with customers and partners.

Comment by Jim G Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:06 am
For websites, update, update, update. A stale website conveys failure.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:16 am
Also, networking, networking, networking.

Ask for referrals. There are going to be people who know a bunch of people. Some of these people are going to be networked online.

For example, in Forest Park there’s a college student who started a Forest Park group. As far as I can tell she doesn’t care much about politics. However, if you’re campaigning in Forest Park, you probably want to introduce yourself to her before your opposition does.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:16 am
I know that facebook can be used to start groups or pages for the purposes of promoting a candidate. In addition to using Facebook as a communications vehicle to send updates. Twitter is good for about the same thing to send quick updates.

Now as for a campaign website. I’d keep it simple and well designed. Minimalism is the key and it shouldn’t look amateurish, almost like the person who designed it doesn’t know what they’re doing. It should be easily navigated especially with links to candidates positions and bio. In addition to any pics and vids it should be nagivable.

Also campaign posters and literature should be posted on the website and there should be a blog to provide more in-depth coverage on the campaign trail.

Now I’m sure that campaign websites should provide for dialogue between supporters of a campaign. Obama’s and McCain’s websites had some interactive elements like blogs for supporters, but on a local level I would imagine that’s expensive and impractical.

Comment by Levois Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:30 am
The KISS principle applies: Keep It Simple

A good website has a simple front page with the key bullet points of the campaign and links to volunteer, donate, and get more information. It’s and excellent and inexpensive addition to other outreach efforts.

Flashy graphics and expensive design are a waste of money. The website should be seen as a supplement. It should be easy to find.

People encounter the candidates name and go to the web for more information. I do not think most people (even the tech saavy) think “Who’s running for mayor?” and then go to the web to find out. They see a sign, an ad, a post card, and say, “What’s up with that person?” and then go in search of information.

In addition to keeping that front page simple, it has to have tags that cause it to show up on the first page of a google or yahoo search. And the web site address has to be simple and easy to remember and spell.

The social networking sites should have a little info and direct people toward the web site. (It’s too hard to keep everything up to date.)

The networking sites do need to be monitored daily for bad posts. Weekly campaign updates are a good idea to keep people coming back.

Question: How much of the calendar should be posted? Parades, canvassing, community events. Yes, the supporters need to know so they can help, but at what point is it outweighed by the need to keep the opposition from knowing all of your plans?

Comment by Pot calling kettle Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:37 am
Utilize both the social network sites and the web-site to enagage voters by creating as many ways possible for them to provide input directly to the candidate.

Daily Blogs
“Live”, ask the candidate Blogs
Message Boards
Surveys
E-mail
Contact Information

Many candidates make the mistake of believing that voters seek them out electronically to read about or listen to what the candidate has to say on the issues.

In many respects voters are more inclined to want the candidate to know what they have to say instead, and then gaugue the candidates response.

Use these medium to become electronically inter-active, and take full advantage of the opportunity to listen to the audience rather than just talk to them.

When you know what pople are most interesed in, it becomes far easier to craft a specific message that addresses what their concerns are. The deeper you make that connection, the more committed the voter will be towards supporting you, and this can translate into volunter service, and financial contributions in addition to votes.

Comment by Quinn T. Sential Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:37 am
Update your online blog frequently in response to current events.

My son lives in a town outside of Los Angeles where the local state rep puts out a website video in which he comments regularly on current issues in state government and his position on them. It is very user friendly and allows constituents to
see their rep instead of just receiving the occasional written communication.

I don’t know about other parts of the state but this is far superior to what we get here in Oak Park from our elected state reps, whose motto seems to be Hide! unless it’s election time.

Comment by Cassandra Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:38 am
I just was on facebook for one of my candidates, and there is a friend that is in a bilingual district. This person posts status updates in English, then comments on them in Spanish so regardless of the language spoken, people will be able to understand the status update.

I just thought this was a good way to engage people/voters/constituents that speak different languages.

Also, on the governmental side, our constitutional officers do a very good job providing content in English and in Spanish. Madigan’s site is a good example of this (I do not speak/read Spanish, but I assume that its an exact translation of the English page)

Comment by neato! Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:41 am
My advice it to make sure that the front page or landing page of your website is geared toward the general voter. I read somewhere (I should probably look this up again) that a decent percentage of voters will google candidates names prior to the election in an attempt to do research before voting. However, they may not do anything beyond look at the front page. You want to make sure that your main message is conveyed there. You can put issue details and campaign news and blog entries and such on other pages — people who are interested will click further. But make sure that anyone who clicks through to your website even for 5 seconds will get the main message of your campaign.

And to ditto what others have said — don’t start something unless you intend to keep it up. I think it is better to NOT have a Facebook page, for example, than to have one that goes weeks or months without an update.

Comment by Lakefront Liberal Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 11:48 am
For Congressional races the web site should evolve.

Early pre-primary, the campaign is trying to court donors and other people who feel strongly.

Immediately pre-primary, the campaign is trying to close the deal with party voters, but not necessarily people who follow specific issues.

Post-primary, pre-general, early, the website is back to courting donors.

In the closing weeks the website is serving multiple functions.

1. Selling candidate
2. Allowing voters to sign-up for rides
3. Explaining early voting
4. Recruiting E-Day volunteers

The website should keep supporters engaged with updated content.

But there’s also an election cycle. The website should be doing what a website can do to support the campaign’s specific needs at that time.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:08 pm
Set goals for acquiring email addresses and mobile phone numbers of registered voters.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:11 pm
For a local office with a small campaign budget I would recommend a site but not spend too much money on it. Maybe 5% of total budget if possible. It is too costly both in terms of time and money, to create and maintain for it to dominate your campaign’s activity. So should you have one? I’d say a qualified yes. Is it a disaster if you do not? Not at all.

Comment by Cosmic Charlie Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:11 pm
If you are going to use twitter don’t try create the illusion of having a conversation, actually have the conversation or stay off of twitter. If you are going to just put out press stuff and that is about it, just don’t bother. You will end up looking worse.

Web sites, keep them up to date and remember once it is on a web site it is likely there will be a record of it forever… So if you change your position on something people will be able to document that.

Comment by OneMan Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:13 pm
In my experience the only people who pay any attention to candidate websites are their opponents. And reporters near a deadline.

Comment by Ela Observer Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:14 pm
Social networking sites are a fantastic way for supporters to “interact” with a candidate, whereas, print and broadcast outlets are just the candidate talking at the potential voter/supporter.

But moderation is most important.

Too many Facebook messages or too many updates and folks begin to ignore you. Too little and they forget you.

Making social sites work for you is important (your work should be minimal as a candidate)–getting your supporters to recruit their friends for support, creating name ID, and showing potential supporters that the candidate is in-the-know about technology, and that s/he is committed to using it as a tool to improving service to constituents, not as a popularity model.

The attention span of the social media audience is very short so if you can’t use it effectively, you’ll be ignored, and it’s a waste of time.

It is, however, the perfect opportunity for constituents to see candidates as people, not just politicians, with pics of the family, status updates, favorite movies/books/etc, and comment and wall postings from other people. It can make them real. And “friending” them can make a suppporter feel vested.

A great tool if you’re knowledgeable about it.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:31 pm
1) Remember your opponents visit your site, YouTube page, etc. just as much, if not more, as your supporters do and you site can be used for psyops. In a previous campaign an opponent responded to a web update before any of our supporters saw it. It was a useful distraction and wasted about 48 hours of that opponents time. Understanding that, we (the comm team) made sure the campaign manager and candidate were briefed on what was going but did not get caught up in the day-to-day web noise unless it was absolutely necessary.

2) Also, in local races understand that a YouTube page and blog is going to be watched by the media as well as political insiders. Much of the content we created was meant for them and they did respond to it. Often our voters/supporters never saw YouTube/blog posts, but insiders, who often influenced voters, were often buzzing about what we put up.

3) No one formally associated with the campaign should get involved in message board/chat room/comment section flame wars. We did it ONCE and learned our lesson.

4) In local races nothing beats face-to-face contact. In one race the candidate who won had the worst web presence but had the best ground game. A fancy web operation will never replace old school campaigning, it can only compliment it.

Comment by wndycty Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 12:31 pm
One simple message–don’t spam voters. I really like Sara Feigenholtz but got annoyed by the number of email requests for money that I received during her recent campaign. There has got to be a balance between too much and not enough.

Comment by Cinho Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 2:10 pm
Sort of like yard signs, you have to have one, but, unless you’re in a congressional or statewide campaign, I believe the value is minimal. As I said, you have to have one, and now it needs to include Facebook, Twitter and things like Digg incorporated, but it’s really secondary to tv, radio and direct mail, because it’s so difficult to pinpoint your universe.

You’re basically doing it to convey an image of being current and/or “hip” - depending on the level you go with it, but for most legislative and lower races, I think a basic site voters can find contact info, press releases and stories and basic position statements is sufficient.

As Obama proved, you can use it for fundraising and newer techniques for reaching voters, but unless you have the ability to hire staff or pay for the service, a candidate could spend way too much time worrying about your website/Internet presence when they should be raising money and talking directly to targeted voters.

As members of the Boomer Generation become the “seniors” among voters, the Internet will become a more and more useful tool, but as a fairly significant majority of voters are seniors right now and a lot of Internet users are what I would classify as “casual” users, the impact is still not yet that impressive compared to traditional methods of message delivery.

Difference between the current environment and what will likely change pretty quickly each two-year cycle over the next ten years.

Comment by Amuzing Myself Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 2:35 pm
I live in Schaumburg and there is a $120 MILLION project that the village what’s to do. This is a case where the village or political persons should have created a website exclusive for this job and have all information available for viewing and printing. The village didn’t create a website because they don’t want people of Schaumburg to know about this project.

Comment by Deeda Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 3:12 pm
This is not rumor this is fact

Comment by Deeda Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 3:13 pm
I think websites are good for getting volunteers, people, finding people who will put a sign in your yard and getting small campaign contibutions in an efficient manner. I doubt the ability of them to get votes. It seems more like a place to fire up the base and find people who already support you.

Comment by Ahoy Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 3:19 pm
Fresh content. It should not b a sticky ad in cyber space with only an occasional update.

Many development companies host online live chats with developers to discuss products. These sessions are mediated with questions submited to a host. I would suggest canidates do town hall style online live question and answer sessions under a similair format. (attendees can not just blurt out questions, they have to /send them toa moderator). Make sure the moderato lets the touhg questions in, they should just be there to screen out the tin foil hatters and keep the text to a minimium.

Comment by Ghost Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 3:35 pm
Two other thoughts:

1) Keep in mind internet saturation rates. They’re not as high as one might think.
2) The political internet will finally come into its own when online voting becomes a reality. Then all bets are off about the importance of the internet to any campaign. Imagine being able to link to the voting site from the candidate’s web page — that’s a powerful tool.

Comment by the Other Anonymous Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 3:43 pm
A few thoughts here…
1) For the folks putting on your meeting today, ITP needs to sponsor research (exit polls, probably) to ACTUALLY FIND OUT! Without it, all the anecdotal evidence in the world is still pretty worthless.
2) The same stylistic rules apply to political websites that apply to commercial ones (content maters, update often, most web users don’t typically scroll, video is great but imbedded sound files are evil, broken links make you look incompetent, etc.).
3) Another blog I frequent had a discussion on attack sites that may be linked to an opponent (http://www.illinipundit.com/2009/03/24/bradfield-campaign-floods-local-blog-creates-attack-site). Stay away from this nonsense, it will kill a candidate’s credibility.

Hope this helps, Rich…good luck, today.

Comment by McLean Farmboy Wednesday, Mar 25, 09 @ 4:10 pm
[…] Gibbs was joined by Rich Miller, Editor and Publisher of The Capitol Fax and columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, who discussed the effects of blogging and new technology on the political process. To spur discussion at the event, Miller pointed to his blog’s Question of the Day: […]

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