it’s been a while since we’ve taken a look at the pilot fish blogs of the candidates themselves, so today we delved into a few — and a bracing experience it was.
Perhaps feeling defensive about yesterday’s thunderstorm of criticism from the blogosphere, someone seems to have declared today Stuart Smalley day over at the John Kerry blog. (Remember Smalley’s self-help mantra, “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!”?) Shockingly, other Democrats like Kerry. The Kerry blog points to New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s speech on the Senate floor yesterday where he loudly “decried the “chickenhawks” in the Republican Party, which he defined as shrieking “like a hawk” but having “the backbone of a chicken.”
Stuart Smalley day also includes a carbon copy of Gen. Wesley Clark’s editorial in yesterday’s New York Times in which Clark praised Kerry’s “sterling” military record. We weren’t too surprised to see this promoted over at the Kerry website, but why it took them 24 hours to latch on to it puzzled us.
While the Kerry campaign blog is busy patting itself on the back, the Bush bloggers are all about boogying down at rallies and parties. The most recent “Students for Bush Roundup” burbles, “You can’t beat visibility like this: the Detroit Tigers’ mascot stops by to greet pro-Bush students outside a home game.” (The Bush blog fails to note that the Tigers are currently a dismal 26 out of 30 in Major League Baseball attendance.)
The real news over at the Bush blog is the giant “Party for the President” that is planned for this evening. BC ’04 supporters in all 50 states will rally at more than 5,000 Parties for the President happening across the nation this evening. Parties with five or more RSVPs through GeorgeWBush.com will join Vice President Cheney and others on a conference call. (Now there’s a lure.) We wonder if model and Bush niece Lauren Bush will be wearing the same Michael Kors gown that she wore earlier this week to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Party of the Year? Hopefully, the paparazzi will be on hand to assuage our curiosity.
Moving on to a political party that loves to party, perhaps in this case too much, we checked in with the Libertarians. Candidate Gary Nolan hasn’t blogged since April 14, when he opined on President Bush’s prime-time news conference. Just for fun though, we suggest you check out the freedom-lover’s post from April 13 on the demise of Howard Stern and the Victoria Secret Runway Special. In short, Nolan thinks censorship is bad.
Green Party front-runner David Cobb’s front-page blog (a la The Washington Monthly) is updated more often than the laissez faire Nolan’s. Cobb, for those who don’t follow the candidate, recently spoke in New Mexico. Despite the blog’s abundance of current content, we have to say its failure to promote any big parties or to make mention of Victoria’s Secret has got to be murdering its daily hit count.
Buck up, Greensters — Campaign Desk has the same problem.
–Thomas Lang
Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.
