Illinois Politician Blogs Revisited
By vouchey in News on Jun 8, 2005 12:00AM
A month ago Chicagoist took a look at the rash of new blogs launched by Illinois politicians. We concluded that while the blogs were interesting, we withheld judgement since successful blogs tend to have regular posts over time. Let's check back to see if things have gotten any better.
In our review we looked at three new blogs launched in April, one from new U.S. Senator Barack Obama, CTA Chair Carole Brown and Republican Cook County Board President Candidate Tony Peraica. Since then, Chicagoist learned about Suburban Lakefront GOP Congressman Mark Kirk's blog, which has been running since January.
Before plunging into reviews, we direct you to a real, live blog run by Indiana GOP Congressman Mike Pence, who seems to regularly and genuinely post to his own blog. Most of the entries are made by his press staff, but occasionally he makes posts of his own which adds energy to the website and conveys a strong sense of what Pence thinks is important in a very human way - precisely blogs are meant to do.
Molly Chapman Norton of House Race Hotline in her March 2 article, "Why Congress Doesn't Blog...And a Few Members Who Do" answered why more politicians don't blog very succinctly: The best blogs are freeform thinking on an issue and can wildly veer from the specific message carefully crafted by press staff. That's a scary thought for most politicians, and maybe explains our findings about Illinois blogs since we first looked at them in May.
And since then, Senator Obama has continued his blog-tease: Very little content, but the one post he made on May 12 on the importance of Ethanol has the firey, preacher-like voice of the Obama so many of us fell in love with last fall. But his lack of posts make us wonder if Obama is personally interested in a blog, or if it was a staff idea. Grade: C+ for promise.
Next up is CTA Chair Carole Brown. When it was launched in the midst of the CTA funding fight in the Illinois Legislature, Brown's blog had the promise of being a catalyst for new communication between CTA management and the average rider. Completely written by her, on occasion she directly responded to reader questions, and tried to hoist the banner of rider solidarity. But then her posts got more sparse, and more updates from Springfield (mirroring content found in the newspaper), less of her own take on events. Grade: B- for appropriate use during a crisis.
And then we revisit GOP County Presidential Candidate Tony Peraica's blog. In May we said that it, "reads like your stereotypical angry conservative voter blog," and it still does. We asked Peraica press staffer Dan Proft if Peraica posts himself. Dan told us that, "He switches off with campaign staff but, even in those instances where a staffer posts, Peraica usually gives guidance on goings-on within county government that he believes should be spotlighted and thus posted for discussion." Chicagoist is impressed by the regularity of the posts, and could eventually become a magnet for everyone frustrated with Cook County government patronage. We also like that people are allowed to make comments. The chief change we'd make is if the blog distinguished between staff and Peraica posts. Grade: A- for correct implementation of the concept.
Finally, we wanted to include Northshore GOP Congressman Mark Kirk's blog. We're glad to see some Illinois Congressman embracing technology, but frankly Kirk doesn't seem to get the idea of a blog. The posts read less like personal takes on issues than quick political journal entries on what he's up to. For instance, "Yesterday, I got a surprise visit from more than 50 children from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation." Sounds nice, but the typical saccarine fluff we come to expect from a politician. Shake it up a bit, Mark! Grade: C- for missing the point.
In short, it looks like politicians are trying, but unless they've got something immediately at stake, like say getting elected, they aren't really putting any energy into their blogs. Let's hope that changes soon.