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Political blogs have been getting a bad rap in
newspapers for years, but they’re rapidly coming of age and already
having an impact on campaigns throughout Illinois this year. Take, for example, Peoria, which probably has more
political bloggers per capita than anyplace else in the state. Peoria’s daily newspaper has had an annoying
habit over the years of only publishing positive stories about one of its
favorite local politicians, state Rep. Aaron Schock. The paper’s
coverage has bordered on the nauseating, and it continued even after Schock
decided to run for Congress. In his official congressional announcement speech,
Schock proposed selling nuclear missiles to Taiwan if China refused to
cooperate with U.S. efforts to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb.
Amazingly enough, that proposal wasn’t covered at all in Peoria until
State Journal-Register reporter Bernie Schoenburg happened to read Schock’s
announcement. The Peoria paper continued to gloss over the story,
but local and statewide bloggers quickly jumped into the fray, discovering,
for instance, that the missiles Schock wanted to sell Taiwan had all been
destroyed years ago because of a treaty signed by Schock’s professed
conservative hero, former President Ronald Reagan. While Schock refused to back down, bloggers kept
digging. They found that Schock had voted against a bill in the state
Legislature to put economic pressure on Iran’s energy business
— the driving force behind Iran’s nuclear ambitions —
through state pension-fund divestment, even though Schock voted for a
similar divestment bill for Sudan. Larry Handlin at ArchPundit.com pointed out that
Schock’s nuke idea would violate international law. A commenter at my
blog noted that Schock’s proposal was scarily similar to the Soviet
Union’s attempt to put nukes in Cuba (which very nearly triggered a
nuclear holocaust). Billy Dennis, who led the charge on Schock at his
Peoria Pundit blog, discovered that the Chinese government had helped
Schock pay for a trip to that country a few years ago. It wasn’t until Schock abandoned his goofy
proposal that the Peoria paper finally acknowledged almost all of the
concerns raised by the bloggers.
Blogs are having a different effect in U.S. Rep. Dan
Lipinski’s district. Lipinski is a conservative Democrat whose
father, former Congressman Bill Lipinski, engineered an unconscionable free
ride to Washington, D.C., for his kid, who hadn’t even lived in
Illinois for years. Lipinski has strong opposition from Mark Pera in the
upcoming Democratic primary. Pera’s cause is being championed by
liberal Democratic blogs all over the country, so every local story that
trashes Lipinski is put in front of hundreds of thousands of eyeballs that
otherwise wouldn’t see them. As a result, Daily Southtown columnist Kristen
McQueary now has a bunch more fans than she did before the campaign season
began. That coverage, in turn, has raised big campaign bucks for Pera when
highlighted by the national blogs.
Congressional campaigns aren’t the only races
being affected by blogs. A blogger in Lake County (“Team
America”) was the first to report concerns about state Sen. Terry
Link’s nominating petitions. Apparently a couple of dead people
“signed” the petitions, as did one of Link’s former
Republican opponents. Oops. The seriousness of the situation was
overstated, but the local media picked up the story almost right away. Bloggers in Illinois and even nationally are
expressing interest in Daniel Biss’ campaign for the Illinois House.
Biss faces an uphill race in a district represented by popular Republican
incumbent state Rep. Beth Coulson, but he’s raising a ton of cash
because he has paid so much attention to online media.
Quite a few Chicago bloggers have been aggressively
advocating a financial bailout of the Chicago Transit Authority. Much of
their reporting and analysis has been far superior to anything produced by
the “mainstream” Chicago media. Some newspapers have gotten into the act. Lynn
Sweet’s blog at the Chicago Sun-Times is a treasure trove of information about the presidential
campaign that you won’t find in the paper. Even the Chicago Tribune has
bloggers now, and they’re not doing a bad job. Nobody really knows where this is all leading, but
it’s obvious that if you want to know “the rest of the
story” about any issue, big or small, you have to go online. Come over to my blog this week
(thecapitolfaxblog.com) to find links to all the blogs mentioned above and
more.
Rich Miller publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com
This article appears in Nov 15-21, 2007.
