Rich Cahill Jr. (Photo by Dan Barton)
It’s difficult to gauge the popularity of blogs on Blogger, because even those who add a counter can start the count at whatever number they’d like. Many local political blogs allow for commentary, and sometimes those build a bit of steam and go into the double-digits, but with responses anonymous it’s virtually impossible to determine how many come from the same person.
Decreases the peace?
Richard Born, a political science professor at Vassar College, said perhaps the most lasting impact of political blogging has been its contribution to the air of rancor and divisiveness in contemporary politics.
“They’re one of the more important forces leading to polarization today in American politics,” Born said. “Political blogs tend to be relatively extremist; relatively far left or relatively far right.”
The pervasive extreme partisanship and nastiness Born sees in political blogging today is considerably different than what some believed blogging might evolve into when it first began.
“Political blogs, basically 12 years ago at the beginning of the century, started to come into their own, but they were widely anticipated back in the 1990s,” said Born. “There was a lot of optimism, originally speaking, that political blogs could theoretically let individuals, ordinary people, become extremely important and gain widespread readership. But from what I understand having read on the topic, a lot of these promises and hopes for democratization have not come to fruition.”
Blaber disagrees. “I think politics are polarizing in general, and I think it’s a good thing,” Blaber said, adding that blogs can often relay the news a lot more quickly than other local media sources. “There are certain times the newspapers don’t get information out, and it’s almost like a 24-hour news cycle like cable news. I think it’s beneficial.”
Professor Richard Davis of Brigham Young University and the author of Typing Politics, believes that while many still get their primary news from the mainstream media, active blog readers often feel there’s a bias in the reporting and that the content found on the blogosphere is more accurate. Born disagrees, at least to some degree.
“There are only a small percentage that have a widespread readership, and credible sources are very important,” Born said. “Some of the biggest blogs in terms of their readership tend to be those that are run by experts, academics, people who are lawyers, etc.”
For his part, Cahill agreed.
“I don’t think it has that much impact on how people make up their minds on how to vote,” he said. “I think it’s bigger to the people on the inside than it is to the average voter.”
Perhaps there’s something to that. Since the Ulster Report’s inception in January, Ulster is Your Town Too has posted just four entries, half of which are about the Ulster Report. Foils are a natural part of political blogging, both on a national level and locally, where one can find Ulster County Mojo (“Exalting the virtuous & lampooning the wicked”) and Ulster County Cloakroom (“Keep your shovel handy”), so it’s no surprise that local political blogs sometimes direct their posts at one another.
Quigley, who said he knows who runs Ulster is Your Town Too (“He is supportive of me, and I appreciate that”) and has suspicions of who is behind the Ulster Report, said he’s had a “love-hate relationship with blogs” since becoming involved in politics in 2007. Like Cahill and Yess, he generally prefers bloggers willing to post publicly rather than anonymously.
“Some of them profess to be journalists,” Quigley said. “There are no standards they follow. I have never seen anybody do a serious piece with any level of diligence on the facts. And they’re usually biased more towards the person’s individual agenda than they are towards the mission of educating the readers on any single issue.”
Quigley said he prefers bloggers like Blaber and Cahill, who back up their opinions more openly than those who are anonymous.
“I think both of those have a tremendous amount of credibility in the blog world because you know where they come from,” Quigley said. “You can understand the comments in relation to the personal biases that the individuals may carry to the game. There are many blogs in the area, but the only two that have any kind of consistency are Blaber and Cahill.”
Cahill said that openness can be something of a two-way street.
“I’ve had people pat me on the back for my opinion,” he said. “But one thing I’ve learned is that a pat on the back is just a few feet from a kick in the can.”
The “wicked”, ie— primarily those in politics themselves– can’t STAND the blogs because they show what people are really thinking about them, and often it hits the ego HARD. They troll the blogs looking for someone to shoot down rather than hunker down and do a better job. At least that is what *can* happen(and has happened). They *love it* when someone jumps on the “lambaste the anonymous blogger bandwagon”(so they can lambaste someone they disagree with), but in fact what they are really against is anyone expressing an opinion contrary to THEIRS. Their hypocrisy tends to extend to the notion expressed publically as faith in “democracy”, but God help anyone who disagrees in any way with their “holy robes.” Blaber knows these dynamics very well and demonstrates this when he states to be careful what you post because judges, elected officials, etc. read the blogs. There is really only one thing to say about that, which is what Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Geo. Washington, and Thomas Paine might have said: “May their false white beards drop down and expose them for what they are:’naked before the public.'”(if so be the case, of course).