Bloggers Should Warn Rudy

Update: Capt. Ed has an important update to his post:

UPDATE: The Giuliani campaign reminds me that they did make the Mayor available on May 16th for a conference call. I stand corrected on that point, and hope they will do it again sometime.

In a sense, Captain Ed may have already warned Rudy while blogging on a campaign conference call this AM:

Overall, I'd say this didn't tell us much we don't already know. I also find it interesting that alone among the top-tier declared candidates, Team Rudy hasn't make their candidate available to bloggers yet. I wonder when they plan on engaging to that level. I'm going to take a wild guess that it won't take Fred Thompson five months to get around to that.

I checked other pertinent links via Memeorandum. The campaign used this to their advantage to spout talking points and refused to answer any real questions. And the call doesn't seem to have expanded or amplified information that was released two days ago. So, what was the point, other than perhaps getting Rudy G's name in some blog posts?

If candidates in 08 think they are going to be able to use bloggers as a one way conduit to get their message out while treating them like amateur flacks, when they are in many cases as well informed as many MSM journalists, they are going to get burned. I was fortunate enough to have been on some conference calls with Senator McConnell, who appeared to appreciate the fact that bloggers were informed and wanted answers. Rudy should re-think his blogger outreach until he's ready to answer some questions, maybe even make some news. Otherwise, he won't be news when it comes to blogs and his grass roots campaign will likely suffer as a result.

Comments

[Observer]

Blogger contact is now almost a new requirement in the political sphere.

Some candidates will use only a web presence without blogger interaction, but the left side has totally involved themselves since the days of the Howard Dean blogroots effort and the rising influence of the Kos Kids and MoveON

Powerline has a forum section which some of the candidates on the right, but it is not truly interactive.

Campaigns have volunteers gathering video of every appearance of those they wish to target and will amplify perceived Macacca slip ups via such places as Youtube to reach the masses.

But the good point is Rudy is not officially or heaven forbid unofficially generating the tiresome spam of the PaulBots.

[Buzzy]

The Rudybots are there but they're limiting themselves to attacking Fred at this point. That may change with Rasmussen showing Fred tied with Hillary at 45% and Rudy trailing a bit.

Sorta OT but do the Paul people actually think they're doing their candidate any good by swarming online polls and spamming blogs? At one point I thought about looking into some of his ideas but watching the way his followers are acting I'm afraid if I attended one of his events someone would offer me a cup of koolaid.