Bloggers at the gates

 

 

 

2006 Connecticut Democratic Primary was a significant mile stone for the election of Internet era. Ned Lamont’s defeat of incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman, who ran as the nominee of the Connecticut for Lieberman party, was accomplished by making a blogosphere consisted of people who had been developing opposition toward him. Despite the initial support of all the state’s major elected officials, Lieberman lost to Lamont in primary.

 

 

In this article, the author Kevin Pirch argued that the blogs by uniting like-minded individuals is a major key of Lamont’s success, and hinted that this tendency possibly change the future of American political system.

 

Pirch points out three essential functions for parties.

 

1, Uniting like-minded individuals

2, Vetting all possible candidates

3, Finding the candidate that best represents those views

 

In 2006 election in Connecticut, those functions were successfully implemented by bloggers and social network services. No less important is the fact that there had been a strong animosity lingering in Connecticut liberals, which became a centripetal force to unite people. My argument is that strong feeling toward “ancien regime” is inevitable to bring out the power of blogosphere for whatever the purpose is.

 

In the book, “Here Comes Everybody”, Clay Shirky introduced the story about the people who began the opposition campaign toward Catholic Church to condemn child abusing father. The group formed by lay membership, VOTF, efficiently united all the domestic brethren and promoted the scandal to national level. Shirky said, “Today, with social tools, it is organizational participation by the laity.”  In the Lamont campaign, voters showed their ability to function as a part of the party.

 

We should remember, though, that blogosphere itself is usually a sheep without a shepherdthere should be a kind of a dissident feeling to revive the autonomy of a blogosphere to be functional.