Not Making Friends

Hillary Clinton is not making friends among a certain group of bloggers.  In fact, she’s darn near turning them into enemies.

Why We Don’t Have Her Back

For a Democratic presidential campaign to go into the general election without the Netroots is to fight with one hand behind your back. Yet, that is what the Clinton campaign intends to do. Their contempt for the progressive blogosphere is manifest and comes in comments from people as diverse as Al From and Paul Begala. “They (bloggers) don’t really speak for the Democratic Party,” From said Thursday during a 45-minute chat in Las Vegas. He cited poll results that show Clinton with 51 percent of the vote against Rudy Giuliani [... ]

It’s not just the bloggers who are have a tough time.  It’s mainstream reporters, too. The Bill Clinton campaigns were extremely open to reporters, even the local ones.  What’s up with this philosophy?

Clinton and reporters and control … oh my

Every major presidential campaign is going to approach media relations in a different way, but as TNR’s Michael Crowley explained in a fascinating piece, Hillary Clinton’s team has crafted an aggressive press operation that perceives reporters as a combative enemy army, to be treated accordingly. Reporters who have covered the hyper-vigilant campaign say that no [...]

Another blogger opines that bloggers would not have been good for Bill Clinton, either…

Blogs: Bill Clinton’s Kryptonite

Let me throw out a counterfactual. If we had had blogs when Bill Clinton was President, he would have been a lot less effective and his approval ratings lower. Bloggers, who shape more and more of the coverage, deal largely in the printed word. Until YouTube, video was utterly irrelevant to our commentary. Even [...]