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Monday, February 12, 2007

When a blogger goes to work for a candidate, she's bound to become boring.

Dan Drezner:
[A]s much as I used to care about these intersections between the blogosphere and the real world, I can't get worked up about this kind of thing anymore. Who cares about campaign bloggers? They are little more than good PR stylists.

If you don't believe me, check out this Amanda Marcotte post on Edwards' health plan -- turns out she's happy that Paul Krugman likes it. Well, blow me down!
I guess it's too bad when a good blogger gets a job like this. But bloggers are often people who need jobs and want to get into politics. It's their choice, but it is a choice to be boring.

Link via Glenn Reynolds, who observes that the key to blogging is not taking it seriously, which, if true, means that blogging for a candidate is never going to be any good. I think the key to blogging is to do it for its intrinsic value, that is, motivated by the reward of writing itself. I don't think you can do that if you're working for a candidate. You may still find your job intrinsically rewarding, but the writing itself won't be intrinsically rewarding, and therefore, it won't be good in the way I want blogging to be good.

ADDED: Stephen Bainbridge notes that Marcotte is maintaining her un-boring ways on her personal blog and wonders what Edwards thinks of that.

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