Update: In this entry I originally included the following quote from the American Expatriate in Indonesia blog quoted above: ‘Another of Obama’s former classmates, Emirsyah Satar, now CEO of Garuda Indonesia, has been quoted as saying: At that time, he was quite religious in Islam but after marrying Michelle, he changed his religion.’ It has been pointed out to me that comments posted on that blog claimed that this was a mistranslation, and that the quote attributed to Satar was written instead by the author of the article.

P.

Yes it was, it was about some very specific bloggers you term “Decents”. And you were right, they weren’t major factors in the campaign, because bloggers, including but not limited to Decents, tend to have preoccupations that are removed from the normal bread and butter issues that decide elections. Which is why candidates are sensible to preserve some distance between themselves and their more excitable web-based advocates.

Oh! Of course!

And you’d probably vote for a honeydew melon afixed to a broom-handle if it met the expectations of your soft racism.

And white leftists who apply low-expectation standards to a presidential candidate merely because of his race are, in fact, engaging in a kind of subtle racism, a racism that assumes that because of skin-colour, the candidate in question isn’t quite up to scratch.

They are mute racists, ‘Marcel Marceau’ racists, racists who won’t utter the “N”, but who will, through their actions, enthusiastically ‘mime’ it out!

They see Obama and then set about indulging their soft bigotry by ’squinting’ at his race.

True anti-racism has, as its cornerstone, the application of fair and objective standards to all, irregardless of their skin tone.

Had Obama been white, and had he had a similar entourage and made similar comments, the left would have sprung into action and mopped the floor with him.

And just for a bit of balance ( cuz you like ‘balance’
!), I think McCain, POW that he was, is a fickle, two-faced hypocrite for having virtually abandonned his wife ( and his child) after she was disfigured in an auto accident.

Granted, David T may not like Dean or Obama very much, but I don’t think its particularly controversial to recognise that both have been able to harness the new media to a political campaign effectively. These methods are evolving all the time. That’s kind of what democracy is partly about: participation. That’s positive. It certainly should be to democrats. Moreover, given the development of the economy and technology, the pioneering campaigns of Dean and Obama are just the first.

My point about Ken, Wardytron, was not about bloggers. I was just stating my opinion that issues related to Jews and Muslims (related to Ken) were not major factors in the campaign.

The Decent fantasy is that Ken was defeated because folk were pissed off because of his comments about a Muslim cleric, Jews etc etc., i.e. rather obscure cultural issues that they are interested in.

Anybody who’s ever read any political blogs will be aware (a) that the issues that most motivate bloggers aren’t what most motivate the public, Israel being the most obvious example, and (b) that bloggers come across as being a bit odd, if not obsessive and/or sectionable. I don’t think it’s stretching the imagination too much to suggest that a political campaign resembling the concerns of loud, partisan bloggers is not going to resonate all that well with centrist voters.

Blimey. What is not in dispute (or shouldn’t be) is that Dean helped formulate a model of political organising and fundraising though the internet that Obama has developed skillfully. Itsa model taht is constantly refined and adapted. This view is now increasingly universally accepted.

David T sees this as threat, but the reality is Obama’s campaign (even if he fails to get the top job) will be the subject of much study of how to run a political campaign using the new technology that is available. David T focuses on the blogging aspect, much of it obscure and irrelevant, but thats just a fraction of the picture here.

David T also posits a false dichotomy between bloggers (“weirdos”) and the general public, and the utterly bizarre notion that bloggers call the shots. Utter nonsensical. Blogging is just one tool of many that can be used by any ordinary person inexpensively, and politically campaigns that harness the fundraising and communicative power of modern communications and information technology will draw benefits.

Any democrat should welcome these developments, because it gets more folk involved. David T sneers. It’s pretty inexplicable.

It isn’t David T concern-trolling. If it were, he could stick up page after page of comments AND blogposts from somewhere like DailyKos and play the guilt-by-association card (and there’s some god-awful shite there). He could also post dodgy comments from the MyBO website.

He has done neither.

He has simply shown that Barrack Obama’s official website is very badly run and has allowed people who don’t reflect his views to post as if part of his team. Not clever.

It also calls into question his internet-savvyness. Yes – brilliant to increase grass-roots participation. But the moderation system clearly wasn’t very well thought out. In fact not much of the website was very well thought out.

Here’s a comment from Michael Pugliese’s MyBO blog that sums up the problem:

The problem is that the other bloggers were not monitoring this site. If you call things to somebody’s attention, yes, they will act on it. The problem was that nobody on this site bothered to call anyone’s attention to these postings until LGF started calling attention to them. LGF also exposed some of the very poor design of this web site with its wide open directories and other problems of this sort. We owe them for this. I am personally concerned that since donations are being solicited on this site and a lot of security holes were shown to exist, that the information might fall into the “wrong hands”. I am now personally nervous about handing over my credit card data here. Yes, belatedly it has been noted that a security person is going to be hired, but that hire has not yet happened and that is locking the door after the fact. It is most disconcerting that the campaign is being implemented in such a manner. There have been too many redactions of late for my comfort. If this continues, it will call into question Mr. Obama’s administrative capabilities for this me.

Quite.

President pro tem of the senate no less, third in line to the presidency.

It seems near-certain the Dems will hold the senate this time so there will be something of a fine historical irony in play there should Obama win too.

CiF comments are moderated you fucking imbecile.