Between teaching and writing the dissertation, the blog has been put on the back burner.  I left off with the campaign.  Let me update you on what I’ve been finding in the campaign blogs themselves.

It’s all about dialogic interaction.  Obama brings people into the conversation.  Hillary and McCain did not do as good as a job rhetorically.  The campaign blogs are very interesting to analyze.  Obama did not revolutionize the campaign no more so than JFK did.  What Obama did was create a better rhetorical situation by using a not so new technological device.

How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet.

“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

Interesting article about how Obama writes his speeches:

How Obama Writes His Speeches

The toughest aspect of writing a speech isn’t so much the rhetoric, it’s the ideas—which take time to incubate and develop, says Andrei Cherny, editor of the journal Democracy and a former White House speechwriter under Clinton. “The hardest part about writing a speech like this is not the mechanics of it but what you want to say and how you’re going to say it, the strategy of it,” Cherny says. For a speech of this magnitude it’s not uncommon for politicians and their staffs to work on language for months, going into double-digit drafts, according to Cherny.

Is it me, or is the visual rhetoric that Obama wants to portray is AGE?  He says he’s graying rapidly, I really don’t think your hair can go gray in a matter of one week!!!  Hmmmm….

I just read this article from Newsweek about if it matters if John McCain is computer literate. Andrew Romano made a good point when he said most of us are computer savvy because we work with computers in the workplace, but when you’re a Senator or even President, Internet surfing is left up to staffers and legislative assistants. In fact, a computer is not even in the Oval Office for security purposes. It’s not that one does not want to learn, it’s all about the necessity to use the computer for daily activities… here’s what Romano had to say:

McCain Can’t Use ‘a Google.’ So What?

The only problem? This line of reasoning is misleading. For one thing, McCain’s computer illiteracy doesn’t reflect a lack of curiosity–it reflects a lack of necessity. Over the past 10 years, most adult Americans have encountered and explored computers primarily in the workplace, where the ability to communicate and find information on the Internet has gradually become a required skill. But McCain’s job in the U.S. Senate–where all communication and information has to be filtered through staffers–has actually made fluency more difficult to achieve (or at least less necessary). When aides are responding to your messages and briefing you on every imaginable subject, the incentive to get online sort of disappears.

I know that I would not want the President of the United States to fall for any phishing scams nor get Spam for Al Qaeda. I would rather see the President work less on his MySpace page and work harder at bringing down gas prices,bringing a peaceful end to the War in Iraq, and finding a cure for cancer.

After studying Obama’s blog in March, my conclusion is that Obama concentrates more on Credibility through Similarity, Goodwill and Idealism. It’s not about Power at all. Obama’s ethos is about his ability to connect to voters.

John McCain and Hillary analysis is up next. Stay tuned.

After coding data for the week, I found that there were some more prevalent topics than others.

1. Reverend Wright dominated March and some of April’s conversation

2. Bosnia and the confusion of sniper fire or no sniper fire

3. 3.am.?

4. Obama’s Pennsylvania elitist mishap

5. Hillary won’t give up

6. Delegates

7. McCain wins the Republican Nomination

8. McCain introduces himself to America as a former POW

9. Super Tuesday: Texas has a say in the campaign

10. The Gas Tax

The Wall Street Journal makes a very good point that technology is here to stay in the political realm.

Does the Web Deserve The Power It Gained
To Influence Politics?

Suggesting that there is both good and bad with the Web and politics isn’t to say they exist in equal amounts. Say what one will about the shortcomings of blogs, I can’t imagine going back in time to a world where a relatively small number of newspapers and magazines — even though by and large they were very good ones — had an effective monopoly on what did and didn’t get printed about a campaign.

The Web isn’t going away, and so its boosters should no longer feel defensive when its inanities are pointed out. The YouTube political debates where voters submitted video questions, from January, for example, were described as a singular chance for citizens to question candidates directly, which sounded good until one of the questioners presented himself as a snowman.

Because it’s such a vastly powerful network, the Internet has the ability either to elevate or to debase the political discussion. Both will be occurring between now and November, though with a little luck, not in equal amounts.