I feel obliged to mention the Red County brouhaha now that it’s all over the mainstream press. Here’s the basic story: a semi-pseudonymous blogger, Aaron Park, going by the name of Sgt. York has been writing some very pro-Poizner posts over the last few months. The trouble was that Poizner was paying Park/York at the same time.
Now, as somebody who works for campaigns, and occasionally writing about said campaigns, I’m not one to cast stones. However, I always, always disclose my relationship with a campaign when I mention anything even tangentially related to that campaign. Barring going silent, it’s the only way to provide a viewpoint without being sneaky or out-right dishonest. I trust my readers, and Chip Hanlon of Red County claims to trust his, to be able, given complete information, to decide what information is useful.
Of course, with Republicans, money flows around the blogoshpere and other forums a lot more freely. So, it isn’t that surprising to see something like this. Yet, there is always more to the story. The Poizner camp claims that there’s more
[Poizner spokesman] Agen says this has turned nasty because Red County is a “blatantly pro-(Meg) Whitman site.” Exhibit A: In August, well-known Orange County blogger and Red Countier Matt Cunningham sat down with Poiz. But nothing was ever published. Bupkis.
Yet a few weeks later, Cunningham ran a — brace yourself for this — MULTI-PART interview with Meg Whitman. Yes, the political equivalent of a unicorn sighting. (SF Gate)
Whitman is a big advertiser on the site, and Poizner apparently has been trying, without much success to advertise on the site as well. Was RedCounty trying to hide the ball from the Poizner campaign? Who knows, but with that money slushing around the right-wing-o-sphere, I suppose this was bound to happen
As an epilogue, I will now reiterate the point that money flows around a lot more on the right than the left. Trust me, there have not been any candidates beating down the Calitics doors to advertise.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of Aaron Park’s ire, I can’t help but have a little bit of fun with this one.
Paying people to blog and or “comment” is pretty much standard operating procedure on the right. They really don’t like the idea of anything they don’t control as part of the campaign’s message, and see online as simply a big cheap broadcast medium, be it Facebook, blogs, “Comments” (which are useless), and so on.
It always surprised me when I was selling ads how they always ask about “hiring bloggers” as a sort of low-paid army that will recite chapter and verse exactly what they want said, and take money away the moment any of “their” people dare go off the script one iota.