The Dangers of Political Blogging

Blogging about politics is dangerous. Anger comes out left and right from the blogosphere from almost any topic imaginable. This is why I link to Glenn Greenwald as often as I do. Here’s someone who uses facts and precedent all the time, and yet still gets grilled.

Nevertheless, in Delaware Watch, Dana Garrett’s post about Dennis Spivack left me, well, wanting more.

I hope (rather, can't wait) to see Dana write about Dennis Spivack's anger with more detail. By simply telling me that he's angry without citing specific examples, I'm not sure how to gauge Spivack's "anger."

I also can't wait to hear some details because I'm just not completely sold on me not voting for a candidate because they are angry or because they might cause embarrassment for Delaware. (What’s really unfortunate is that my out-of-state friends from the University of Delaware say that the most embarrassing thing about Delaware is…Delaware.)

Also, in terms of embarrassment, why not talk about Senator Biden’s plagiarism? Why still allow him to be re-elected every term?

By that logic people might as well not vote on platform grounds. And in fact, that logic would make me wonder how people voted for George W Bush at all.

One other item that sticks in my crawl about political blogging is that I don’t think the people who need to be reached are being reached. If Dennis Spivack is embarrassing and is a horrible mistake, then what about Alaska’s Ted Stevens (“The internet is not a dump truck…it’s a series of tubes”)? With Ted Stevens, we have a man who is both angry and ignorant.

Delaware produces a dangerous dichotomy on its own, that blogging apparently hasn’t brought to the surface. Delaware’s wonderful comfort for businesses to incorporate here brings in a tremendous upper echelon Wilmington area complete with its own socio-economics divisions. But further south, Delaware becomes even more divisive from rural farm landscape to a developing beach shore environment. I reside in between the rural area and the shore, and I can tell you that Dana and his messages aren’t getting down here.

I think reaching only one part of an audience that can vote to make a difference could end up being dangerous. There is a caveat though, those most interested in political discourse and change will apply their searches to the internet and find Dana. So, the danger doesn’t really lie in Garrett’s reaching only one part of the whole, but rather the unfortunate fact that the rest of the whole doesn’t want anything to do with politics.