Was the comment left by a PR sock puppet and then forwarded, by prior agreement, to Drudge and The Times? And if so, whose PR sock puppet? Obviously we have no way of knowing, but you would have to be a fool to dismiss the possibility. During the course the election we are certain to see a great deal of this. Sooner or later someone will be caught and it may very well cost them the election.
Politics will always be on the cutting edge of communications. From their experience we will see what works and what does not.
Edit -
Candidates Rethink Web Strategy
Other political strategists like Mike Connell, whose clients include John McCain for President and the Republican National Committee, thinks that analyzing the links to and from blogs is useful up to a point. But a presidential campaign may not always want to disclose where all of its messages originate.
"Sometimes people have a habit of thinking of a blog like a megaphone and that is how you contribute to the conversation," Connell says. "But that is not always how it is done. Having your message percolate up from the grassroots through the blogs has emerged as an effective strategy as well."
Campaigns are not always the best source of information, Connell says. "Many times a message will have more credibility coming from a third party, so a campaign doesn't always want to be the source of the information," he says. "There is a certain merit in independent sources. Sometimes you just want a positive message attributed to a third party because it has more credibility that way. We are talking about more than simply planting rumors and other dark arts here."
More than planting rumors and other dark arts, but clearly not excluding them.
I think traveling under false colors is a real good way to get yourself in trouble online.
1 comment:
I think it's a silly non-issue -- but then, so are most issues that affect the outcome of elections (eg, swift boats).
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