Yard Signs Galore

In case you haven't noticed. Its yard sign season time. If you see a sign or have a sign you want reviewed, send the photo/ image to indianapundit@yahoo.com.

Reviews and commentary will start next week.

Taking On Threats and Innuendo

I got this email in response to the piece about the Democratic Party's blog. This is totally unaltered. I'm not even sure I need to comment on it. It explains itself.

From: "Michael Reef"
To: indianapundit@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 00:07:23 -0500

I like to talk to you for just one moment if I could. I just read an article
that you put about our Democratic Chairman Kevin Knuth. I would like to
say this Kevin is a powerful person and he is good about running the party
right. So, my advise to you is to leave him and the Democratic party
alone. We have our blog to talk about our views on certian issues and how we
feel about them. So, I dont think for one moment you have a right to make
Kevin look bad. I would give your article an F for failure to dissus who we
(The Democratic Party) really is. Im very honred to say that Im running for
Fort Wayne City-Council at Large on the Democratic ticket. So my advise is
to buckle up and prepare for a bumpy ride because the Democrats are taking
Fort Wayne back.

Thank you,
Michael Reef
Fort Wayne City-Council at Large
www.angelfire.com/blog/reefforcitycouncil

Spin Time

A reader sent me the link to this post by Matt Tully of the Indy Star. I expect to get an earful of complaints from certain people about my observations.

• http://blogs.indystar.com/politicaljunkie/
  February 15, 2007
  
  Spinning away
  Posted by Matt Tully
  I heard from Indiana Democratic Party spokeswoman Jennifer Wagner this week. She was mad that I had recently referred to the blog she operates as the Indiana Democratic Party’s blog. (She was so mad that she e-mailed me and my boss -- and, I think, even my mom.)
  Now why would I have called the blog the work of the Indiana Democratic Party?
  Because that's what it is.
  Because Wagner has said many times that the party hired her because of her work on the blog, which she uses as part of her communications strategy — and which she works on from her office at the party’s headquarters.
  So I have and will continue to call the blog the Indiana Democratic Party’s blog. Calling it such in Wednesday's paper was not a mistake. It was not a slip. It was a very conscious decision.
  As athletes like to say, it is what it is.
  But it’s also easy to see why the party would want to distance itself from the blog, and why it keeps a phony wall of separation around it. While entertaining, the blog takes partisan cheap shots to a new level. The party can do what it wants, but the job of the media is to make sure politicians and parties are held accountable for what they say and do.
  Democratic Party officials want us all to believe the blog is a separate entity. That way, they can benefit from the trashing of the opposition while avoiding any public responsibility for what is said.
  As I said, Wagner's blog can be entertaining. But to anyone who isn't in the business of spin, it is what it is: The Indiana Democratic Party's blog.
  And that is what I will continue to call it.

This brings me to the point of this post. Is the Allen County Democrat Party running a blog using the same tactics as the state party?

Kevin Knuth runs the ACDP blog. It states that it is the official blog of the Allen County Democratic Party. Most of the time it tries to create dirt on Republican candidates. Very few of its posts actually contain anything about local democrats. Since February 10 there have only been 3 such posts. I would recommend to Kevin that he needs more "good news" type of posts about what his party is doing. He needs to spend more time telling people what his party is doing to make a better community.

I question whether this kind of website is appropriate for a political party/ party chairperson. I also question whether this effort is actually effective in getting more people to vote for Democrat candidates.