The Blogosphere: 8 Keys to the Campaign

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7. THE BLOGOSPHERE

WINNING OVER THE ONLINE ACTIVISTS

While the past few elections have seen candidates try out newfangled blogging technology with all the comfort and skill of a granddad on a skateboard, the 2008 candidates are doing everyone a favor by not trying to be bloggers.

"Bloggers put much more of a premium on understanding the medium rather than joining in," says Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mitt Romney. Romney's strategy is to participate in podcasts and talk regularly with top conservative bloggers, an approach that has made him the top vote getter in Republican blogger straw polls, though he lags in national telephone ones.

Hillary Clinton, a real-world front runner, dwells in the low one figures in blogger surveys, but she has hired former Kerry hand Peter Daou to burnish her Web image. Daou says bloggers need to be wooed like any other reporters—or voters, for that matter. "It's very old school," he says. "I just reach out to them one by one." Employing bloggers instead of just courting them is a tricky next step, though. McCain was chastised last year when a blogger posted attacks on Romney without disclosing up front that he was on McCain's payroll.

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