Over at Scoble’s blog, he gives too much credit to the netroots outreach of John Edwards:
One thing I just saw over at TechMeme is that USA Presidential campaigns now are conversations?
Really? So far only one Democratic candidate has met with bloggers who aren’t avowed supporters of his (and has had live chats on DailyKos), that I can see. Only one candidate has invited a blogger behind the press lines.
Yes, its a great thing that Edwards is doing, but he’s not the only one doing it. He’s the only one that is going way out of his way to take credit for it.
Bill Richardson has had two sit downs with bloggers, that I know about. Both happened well before Edwards’ well publicized tripping with bloggers and both were with groups that didn’t necessarily support him.
The first, I’d admit, was put together by a couple of pro Richardson guys (me and Ken Camp), but it was attended by now seriously pro-Edwards Will.
This wasn’t a high powered group of folks, but rather some regular folks that Richardson wanted to reach out to because he recognizes something in the netroots that I think he likes. Twice during the meeting his handlers tried to move him on to the next meeting, and twice he brushed them off so everyone could have a chance to get their answers.
You can find the audio of that meeting here. Also attending were Jimmy and Goldy, among several others.
He also met with some bloggers in South Carolina.
Also, if you check out the blog from Richardson’s 2006 race, you’ll notice its a community blog.
Don’t forget that Richardson also met with bloggers in Iowa.
And Scoble is still perpetuating his myth that Edwards is the big netroots guy.
http://scobleizer.com/2007/01/21/if-campaigns-are-conversations/