McCain Launches New Blog, Links to Kos

John McCain's campaign launched a spiffy new blog on Friday, stepping up an effort to catch up to Barack Obama's web dominance. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds sent reporters a statement hitting several Internet priorities:

The blog will offer a fresh perspective and will include quotes, the candidate's schedule and photos not available anywhere else. As a part of our continual effort to reach voters, allow unprecedented access and bring greater transparency to American politics, our blog 'The McCain Report' will provide a sounding board for all.

The first two posts are cheeky. Michael Goldfarb, a campaign blogger and former Weekly Standard reporter, tells readers the blog almost sported a lime-green decor, and tweaks Obama for being "so changey." (Is "changey" the new flip-flop? I hope not.) The McCain campaign has always trailed Obama in online campaigning, lagging in fundraising, social networking, list-building and YouTube outreach, but it has repeatedly tried to engage the Internet community on its own terms. Conservative bloggers talk directly with the candidate via regular conference calls, which is more access than any Democratic candidate ever provided the (larger) liberal blogosphere. The McCain campaign's official sites are also open to commentators of all stripes, providing a more open dialogue than Hillary Clinton's websites, as The Nation documented in March.

McCain is even leaning left online. Right now the campaign homepage features a prominent banner directing supporters to visit Daily Kos, the powerhouse liberal blog, to engage voters:

Activists who post comments across the cyber-aisle can even earn "points through the McCain Online Action Center." Just compare that to the last presidential election, when the Democratic nominee stripped its link to DailyKos, the largest Democratic hub online, after a single controversial post appeared on the site. It was "Reject and Denounce 1.0." Four years later, liberal blogs are so embedded in national politics that even the Republican nominee is trying to engage them.

Ari Melber is the Net movement correspondent for The Nation, where this post first appeared. Check out the Net Movement Politics Facebook Group.

Comments

[SamThornton]

The McCain website, including its egregious blog, is a technical wasteland, a slow, clunky .NET abomination friendly only to the dysfunctional Internet Explorer, an example of how not to properly use the series of tubes which makes up that darned old internet. If this is an example of the best McCain's Brain Trust can come up with, he'll be lucky to carry Tucson in the General Election, let alone Arizona.

[Wilburrr]

Tucson? Tucson is a Democratic stronghold. McCain has never carried Tucson.

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

How many different ways will he be able to say "we're turning the corner" and "the surge is working" and "they hate us for our freedoms" and "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here"?

I think the lack of substance is going to be glaring.

[ThermoChemist]

Don't forget:

Stay the Course
Shock and Awe
Mission Accomplished
Freedom is on the march
Insurgency is in its last throes
etc.

[CindyM2008]

The mcCain site links to Kos so his supporters will post his daily talking points there.
I would hardly connect that to McCain "leaning left".

[Uselessboy]

Look out, McCain's bloggers will put the whole 23-skiddoo on the Daily Kos.

[cindyw]

Thanks. That made me laugh out loud.

[Wilburrr]

ABBA? OMG!!

[ThirdSection]

The best part of that page is the animated "waiting" graphic when you use the pull-down menu of suggested blogs (nothing in the "Liberal" option though, damn it). The star from McCain's campaign logo comes up all flashy. The rest of the site would look better in beige.

http://www.johnmccain.com/ActionCenter/BlogInteract/BlogInteract.aspx

[ThirdSection]

The best part of that page is the animated "waiting" graphic when you use the pull-down menu of suggested blogs. The star from McCain's campaign logo comes up all flashy. The rest of the site would look better in beige.

http://www.johnmccain.com/ActionCenter/BlogInteract/BlogInteract.aspx

[XME]

Hillarious. I can imagine this going over well as much as I can imagine John and Cindy partaking in a fist bump!

[Cookie100]

desperate, sad and desperate, he too call it "the internets"

[ThirdSection]

That site probably runs on vacuum tubes!

[Wilburrr]

Is that what happened to the ENIAC?

[disgustedbyitall]

If you want to reach the half of the country that actually thinks for itself, you've got to access liberal blogs--we who read them have stopped being accessible any other way. Why would I watch the MSM now? It's like going to a museum to see how people lived before they knew the Matrix existed.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

I'm stealing this!

[NicholeWebb]

You are correct! Since I began searching for news myself, watching news on cable and network TV is... well, no wonder we are in the place we are in as a nation, if THAT is what most of us are being exposed to as news and information!!!

[ThermoChemist]

I have also discovered what you and disgustedbyitall have in regards to information. The TV in my living room failed over two years ago, and I just left it as is. I haven't missed it one bit.

Since then, I've been getting all my news online from a multitude of sites. To avoid the supposed stigma of a "vast liberal media bias" in the US, I also get news/information from foreign sources. I also browse the conservative sites to gain their perspective.

Years ago I attempted to join discussions on several conservative sites and was not able to (you have to sign up and wait to get approval). As a test, to see if things have changed, I attempted to do so again last month. Same difference..! You provide your information then have to wait at least a week for "formal" approval. I guess I never got the "formal" approval as I still can't partake in their sacred online discussions. What do I have to do...sign a loyalty oath stating that I will never, ever speak ill of their party or political philosophy...?

[Gma11]

Good lord - a link to Daily Kos!!

I hope DK is not going to be deluged with trolls.

[Dragon5616]

As a dedicated Kossack, I think I can speak for the entire DK community when I say, in the words of Chimpy himself, "Bring it on!"

We had a good laugh when this appeared on McBush's website a couple of weeks ago. Points! We call them "Maverick Points." We're still waiting for those intrepid McBush bloggers to appear. There's nothing like a good troll party.

For a good time, check out this wonderful troll diary: Too bad it arrived before Maverick points began to be awarded.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/30/224422/736

[cindyw]

That's funny. "McCain diminates". I should say so.